92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Monday, 23 January 2012: 4:00 PM
First Year of Data From the Polarization LIDAR for the Detection of Cloud Phase, Particle Orientation and Stratospheric Aerosol At Summit, Greenland
Room 239 (New Orleans Convention Center )
Ryan R. Neely III, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado; and M. Hayman, J. P. Thayer, R. M. Hardesty, M. O'Neill, M. Shupe, and R. Stillwell

Measurements of cloud properties over Summit, Greenland(72.6 N, 38.5 W; 3200 m.a.s.l) are necessary to document the full range of cloud conditions and characteristics throughout the Arctic. A new lidar system has been developed to detect depolarization, backscatter and preference in particle orientation for clouds in the lower troposphere and aerosols in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The lidar, entitled the Cloud Aerosol, Polarization and Backscatter Lidar (CAPABL), is part of the Integrated Characterization of Energy, Clouds, Atmospheric State, and Precipitation at Summit project(ICECAPS) and NOAA's Global Monitoring Division's lidar network.  The lidar is designed to minimize error contributions from the optical system to atmospheric polarization measurements and detects three polarizations to determine the polarization ratio and diattenuation of clouds and aerosols with error less than 2.5%.  The measurement of diattenuation provides a means to identify horizontally oriented ice crystals and forego the assumption of random orientation. Here initial results from the first year and a half  will be examined with particular interest of understanding observations of ice crystal alignment under certain atmospheric conditions.

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