Second Generation Airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL-2) Measurements of Various Types of Aerosols During ORACLES, CAMP2EX, and ACTIVATE

The second-generation NASA Langley multi-wavelength High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL-2) makes airborne remote sensing observations of aerosol and cloud vertical distributions, and aerosol extinction, backscattering and depolarization. HSRL-2 is a follow-on instrument to the highly successful NASA airborne HSRL-1 which has proven useful for characterizing aerosols of various types using its four aerosol intensive variables. Intensive variables are the measurement ratios that do not depend on the amount of aerosol present, but instead provide significant amount of information about particle size, shape and composition. HSRL-2 includes additional measurements at 355 nm, and therefore significant additional information about particle properties that vary among aerosol types. HSRL-2 has been very active on field missions since first deployed and now has accumulated measurements from a wide variety of global locations, including recent field missions ORACLES, in the Southeast Atlantic off the coast of Africa; CAMP2EX in the Philippines; and ACTIVATE off the east coast of North America. Here we present measurement examples from case studies from recent deployments, highlighting a variety of aerosol types, including Saharan and Asian dust, clean marine aerosol, urban pollution, biomass burning and mixtures.