Visualizing Healthy Clouds and Aerosol Plumes in Southeast Texas Using a Micropulse Lidar

Visualization is a way to make scientific data come alive. The data often contain a storied drama, full of cause and effect. Few people respond well intellectually to large complications of numbers, and even fewer will likely change their actions as a result. In this study, the visualization of retrievals from a newly obtained Sigma Space Micropulse Lidar (MPL) at Texas A&M University (College Station, TX) demonstrates key concepts in aerosol-cloud interactions, especially along the Gulf Coast and Southern Great Plains regions. Several hours after being installed and powered for the first time in mid July 2018, a well-defined, large Saharan dust plume entered Texas from the southeast. The MPL showed that most of the dust aerosols was confined to the lowest 2-3 km of the troposphere and correspondingly, visibility and air quality deteriorated along the areas in the direct path of the plume. There were several additional intrusions of Saharan dust before a wind shift brought in smoke aerosols from the catastrophic summer season California wildfires which was also observed by the MPL. In addition, the MPL was not only able to observe diurnal boundary layer cloud evolution but also morning pollution and ash from traffic and construction within the confines of the University. Moreover, a deep convective event passed directly over the MPL at the end of July 2018. The MPL was able to observe the anvil cloud (AR), stratiform (SR), and convective core (CC) regions. The Lidar measurements of aerosol plumes and clouds will be transformed into detailed 3-D visualizations to demonstrate the sources of aerosols, the extent that the aerosols travel, and the complexity of aerosol-cloud interactions.