Impact of Vertical Variability of Aerosol Single-Scattering Properties on Radiative Forcing in Arctic

This project will try to solve two important issues associated with aerosol studies in Arctic both from optical and radiation point of view. The first part of the grant is related to aerosol columnar properties, which might help to retrieve an information about aerosol influence on the radiative properties. This task aims to conduct joint measurements resulting in comparison of two sets of instruments: 1) sunphotometers (ambient conditions), 2) aethalometers and nephelometers (dry conditions) - installed at the bottom of the valley (in Ny-Alesund and in Gruvebadet laboratory respectively) and at Zeppelin observatory (475m a.s.l). The study will be followed by retrieval of both light extinction and aerosol optical depth (AOD) for ambient conditions in the layer and by approximation of Lidar extinction profile within geometrical compression range (0 - 700m). The second part of the project aims to conduct profile measurements of the lowermost atmosphere during aerosol high concentration events. This will allow to indicate vertical distribution of single scattering properties of different aerosol species in spring conditions. Although the project focuses on the aerosol advections, background conditions will be measured as well for climatological and comparison purposes. Profiles will be provided from ground level up to 1.8 km with the usage of tethered balloon with a payload consisting of miniaturized Optical Particle Counter (miniOPC) from Alphasense, Micro-Aethalometer (AE51) from AethLabs and radiosonde (RS92) from Vaisala. The profiles will be performed in the meteorological platform of AWIPEV observatory, in a close distance to a simultaneous Lidar measurements maintained by Alfred Wegener Institute.