G. Pappalardo, A. Amodeo, L. Mona and M. Pandolfi

Istituto di Metodologie per l’Analisi Ambientale IMAA- CNR, C.da S. Loja, Tito Scalo, Potenza, I-85050, Italy,

 

Systematic lidar measurements of aerosol backscatter and extinction in the troposphere were performed since May 2000 with the aerosol lidar system operational at IMAA-CNR in Tito Scalo (Potenza) (Southern Italy, 40°36’ N, 15°44’ E, 820 m above sea level) in the frame of EARLINET project, the first European network of 20 advanced lidar stations operating to provide a quantitative climatological database of the horizontal, vertical and temporal distribution of aerosols over Europe. Aerosol backscatter measurements were performed at both 355 nm and 532 nm, while aerosol extinction coefficient was retrieved from simultaneous N2 Raman backscatter signals at 386.6nm. Lidar measurements performed in Tito Scalo have been collected and analysed according to a regular schedule of two night time measurements per week (around sunset) and one daytime measurement per week (around 13:00 UTC). Results concerning almost three years of measurements will be presented. The evolution of the aerosol integrated backscatter at both 355nm and 532 nm and extinction as well as of the mean value of the lidar ratio in the whole aerosol layer has been studied. Results show a large variability of the measured optical properties of the aerosol with a seasonal variation with highest values for both extinction and backscatter in spring-summer periods.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The financial support of this work by the European Commission under grant EVR1-CT1999- 40003 is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank the German Weather Service for the air mass back-trajectory analysis, and NASA/GSFC for the EP/TOMS Aerosol Index data.