A Method for Aerosol Layer Detection Using Polarized Micropulse Lidar Measurements

For nearly twenty years, the Micropulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) has made autonomous, continuous measurements of the vertical structure of clouds and aerosols. However, the current aerosol product reports only the top aerosol height and requires an overlap-corrected normalized relative backscatter (NRB) signal. With implementation of Version 3, polarized micropulse lidars have been introduced into MPLNET, which adds measurements of the volume depolarization ratio. In this presentation, a technique to detect distinct aerosol layers using the volume depolarization ratio is described that does not rely on an overlap correction. The technique utilizes morphological image processing in order to identify aerosol layers from a cloud- and precipitation-screened NRB signal. Comparisons are made to results from the operational MPLNET aerosol product and advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed.