Abstract

The investigation of variations in stratospheric aerosol mass is important in studying the effects of heterogeneous chemistry and the relevant climatic implications. Data for stratospheric particle mass and other guantities, such as particle extinction or surface area, can be derived from lidar backscatter soundings. Lidar investigations have been performed at Garmisch-Partenkirchen (47.5°N, 11°E) since 1976. All backscatter profiles are measured at the 694.3 nm ruby wavelength and are treated in a similar way so that trends can be analysed: they are normalized above the aerosol layer by matching them with a calculated Rayleigh return which is based on radiosonde data, and they are corrected for molecular and particle extinction. By applying a height and time resolved aerosol model, which is based on the University of Wyoming balloon sonde data, the measured backscatter data were converted to particle mass data (Jager and Hofmann, 1991; 1988/90 data: D.J. Hofmann, personal communication, 1990). Figure 1 shows the lidar derived column mass in the 15 to 30 km height range.

© 1991 Optical Society of America