Abstract. The Rayleigh lidar data collected on 119 nights from March 1998 to February 2000 were used to study the statistical characteristics of the low latitude mesospheric temperature inversion observed over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India. The occurrence frequency of the inversion showed semiannual variation with maxima in the equinoxes and minima in the summer and winter, which was quite different from that reported for the mid-latitudes. The peak of the inversion layer was found to be confined to the height range of 73 to 79 km with the maximum occurrence centered around 76 km, with a weak seasonal dependence that fits well to an annual cycle with a maximum in June and a minimum in December. The magnitude of the temperature deviation associated with the inversion was found to be as high as 32 K, with the most probable value occurring at about 20 K. Its seasonal dependence seems to follow an annual cycle with a maximum in April and a minimum in October. The observed characteristics of the inversion layer are compared with that of the mid-latitudes and discussed in light of the current understanding of the source mechanisms.Key words. Atmospheric composition and structure (pressure, density and temperature). Meterology and atmospheric dynamics (climatology)
Atmospheric Lidars are used extensively to get aerosol parameters like backscatter coefficient, backscatter ratio etc. National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Gadanki (13°N, 79°E), India has a powerful lidar which has alt-azimuth capability. Inversion method is applied to data from observations of lidar system at different azimuth and elevation angles. Data Analysis is described and Observations in 2D and 3D format are discussed. Presence of Cloud and the variation of backscatter parameters are seen in an interesting manner.
We used a combination of simultaneous measurements made with Rayleigh lidar and O2 airglow monitoring to improve lidar investigation capability to cover a higher altitude range. We fed in instantaneous O2 airglow temperatures rather than model values at the peak altitude for a subsequent integration method of temperature retrieval using Rayleigh lidar backscattered signals. Using this method, errors in the lidar temperature estimates converge at higher altitudes indicating better altitude coverage compared with regular methods where model temperatures are used rather than real-time measurements. This improvement enables the measurement of short-term waves at upper mesospheric altitudes (∼90 km). Using two case studies, we show that above 60 km the amplitude of a few short-term waves drastically increases while some of the short-term waves show either damping or saturation. We claim that by using such combined measurements, significant and cost-effective progress can be made in the understanding of short-term wave processes that are important for coupling across different atmospheric regions.
The macro-physical and optical properties of cirrus clouds and its temperature dependencies have been investigated at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL; 13.5° N, 79.2° E), Gadanki, Andhra Pradesh, India; an inland tropical station during the period of observation January to December 2009 using a ground based pulsed monostatic lidar system data and radiosonde measurements. Based on the analysis of measurements the cirrus macrophysical properties such as occurrence height, mid cloud temperature, cloud geometrical thickness, and optical properties such as extinction coefficient, optical depth, depolarization ratio and lidar ratio have been determined. The variation of cirrus macrophysical and optical properties with mid cloud temperature have also been studied. The cirrus clouds mean height has been generally observed in the range of 9-17 km with a peak occurrence at 13-14 km. The cirrus mid cloud temperatures were in the range from -81 °C to -46 °C. The cirrus geometrical thickness ranges from 0.9-4.5 km and 56% of cirrus occurrences have thickness 1.0 -2.7 km. The monthly cirrus optical depth ranges from 0.01-0.47, but most (>80%) of the cirrus have values less than 0.1. The monthly mean cirrus extinction ranges from 2.8E-06 to 8E-05 and depolarization ratio and lidar ratio varies from 0.13 to 0.77 and 2 to 52 respectively. The temperature and thickness dependencies on cirrus optical properties have also been studied. A maximum cirrus geometrical thickness of 4.5 km is found at temperatures around – 46 °C with an indication that optical depth increases with increasing thickness and mid cloud temperature. The cloud radiative properties such as outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) flux and cirrus IR forcing are studied. OLR flux during the cirrus occurrence days ranged from 348-456 W/m 2 with a low value in the monsoon period. The cirrus IR forcing varied from 3.13 – 110.54 W/m 2 and shows a peak at monsoon period.
Abstract. Sixteen-year (1998–2013) climatology of cirrus clouds and their macrophysical (base height, top height and geometrical thickness) and optical properties (cloud optical thickness) observed using a ground-based lidar over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India, is presented. The climatology obtained from the ground-based lidar is compared with the climatology obtained from 7 and a half years (June 2006–December 2013) of Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) observations. A very good agreement is found between the two climatologies in spite of their opposite viewing geometries and the differences in sampling frequencies. Nearly 50–55 % of cirrus clouds were found to possess geometrical thickness less than 2 km. Ground-based lidar is found to detect a higher number of sub-visible clouds than CALIOP which has implications for global warming studies as sub-visible cirrus clouds have significant positive radiative forcing. Cirrus clouds with mid-cloud temperatures between −50 to −70 °C have a mean geometrical thickness greater than 2 km in contrast to the earlier reported value of 1.7 km. Trend analyses reveal a statistically significant increase in the altitude of sub-visible cirrus clouds which is consistent with the recent climate model simulations. The mid-cloud altitude of sub-visible cirrus clouds is found to be increasing at the rate of 41 ± 21 m year−1. Statistically significant decrease in optical thickness of sub-visible and thick cirrus clouds is observed. Also, the fraction of sub-visible cirrus cloud is found to have increased by 9 % in the last 16 years (1998 to 2013). This increase is mainly compensated by a 7 % decrease in thin cirrus cloud fraction. This has implications for the temperature and water vapour budget in the tropical tropopause layer.
Cirrus clouds have been identified as one of the most uncertain component in the atmospheric research. It is known that cirrus clouds modulate the earth's climate through direct and indirect modification of radiation. The role of cirrus clouds depends mainly on their microphysical properties. To understand cirrus clouds better, we must observe and characterize their properties. In-situ observation of such clouds is a challenging experiment, as the clouds are located at high altitudes. Active remote sensing method based on lidar can detect high and thin cirrus clouds with good spatial and temporal resolution. We present the result obtained on the microphysical properties of the cirrus clouds at two Tropical stations namely Gadhanki, Tirupati (13.50 N, 79.20 E), India and Trivandrum (13.50 N, 770 E) Kerala, India from the ground based pulsed Nd: YAG lidar systems installed at the stations. A variant of the widely used Klett's lidar inversion method with range dependent scattering ratio is used for the present study for the retrieval of aerosol extinction and microphysical parameters of cirrus cloud.
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