Importance of Raman Lidar Aerosol Extinction Measurements for Aerosol-Cloud Interaction Studies

Abstract

Using a UV Raman Lidar for aerosol extinction, and combining Microwave Radiometer derived Liquid Water Path (LWP) with Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer derived Cloud Optical depth, to get cloud effective radius (Reff), we observe under certain specialized conditions, clear signatures of the Twomey Aerosol Indirect effect on cloud droplet properties which are consistent with the theoretical bounds. We also show that the measurement is very sensitive to how far the aerosol layer is from the cloud base and demonstrate that surface PM25 is far less useful. Measurements from both the DOE ARM site and new results at CCNY are presented.