Profiling Aerosol Optical Properties at the Central Asian Site of Dushanbe, Tajikistan: Pure Dust Cases

Abstract

Tajikistan is often affected by atmospheric mineral dust originating from various surrounding deserts. The direct and indirect radiative effects of that dust play a sensitive role in the Central Asian climate system and therefore need to be quantified. The Central Asian Dust Experiment (CADEX) provides for the first time an aerosol climatology for Central Asia based long-term aerosol profiling by ground-based lidar (PollyXT type) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. For pure dust cases, mean depolarization(lidar) ratios of 0.23±0.03(44±3 sr) at 355 nm and 0.32±0.02(38±3 sr) at 532 nm wavelength have been measured. The mean extinction-related Ångström exponent was 0.18±0.15.