Browsing by study line "Kaukokartoitus"

Atmospheric aerosol particles absorb and scatter solar radiation, directly altering the Earth’s radiation budget. These particles also have a complex role in weather and climate by changing cloud physical properties such as reflectivity by acting as cloud condensation nuclei or ice nuclei. Aerosol particles in the boundary layer are important because they pose a negative impact on air quality and human health. In addition, elevated aerosol from volcanic dust or desert dust present an imminent threat to aviation safety. To improve our understanding of the role of aerosol in influencing climate and the capability to detect volcanic ash, a ground-based network of Halo Doppler lidars at a wavelength of 1565 nm is used to collect data of atmospheric vertical profiles across Finland. By comparing the theoretical values of depolarization ratio of liquid clouds with the observed values, bleed through of each lidar is detected and corrected to improve data quality. The background noise levels of these lidars are also collected to assess their stability and durability. A robust classification algorithm is created to extract aerosol depolarization ratios from the data to calculate overall statistics. This study finds that bleed through is at 0.017 ± 0.0072 for the Uto-32 lidar and 0.0121 ± 0.0071 for the Uto-32XR lidar. By examining the time series of background noise level, these instruments are also found to be stable and durable. The results from the classification algorithm show that it successfully classified aerosol, cloud, and precipitation even on days with high turbulence. Depolarization ratios of aerosol across all the sites are extracted and their means are found to be at 0.055 ± 0.076 in Uto, 0.076 ± 0.090 in Hyytiala, 0.076 ± 0.071 in Vehmasmaki and 0.041 ± 0.089 in Sodankyla. These mean depolarization ratios are found to vary by season and location. They peak during summer, when pollen is abundant, but they remain at the lowest in the winter. As Sodankylä is located in the Artic, it has aerosols with lower depolarization ratio than other sites in most years. This study found that in summer, aerosol depolarization ratio is positively correlated with relative humidity and negatively correlated with height. No conclusion was drawn as to what processes play a more important role in these correlations. This study offers an overview of depolarization ratio for aerosol at a wavelength of 1565 nm, which is not commonly reported in literature. This opens a new possibility of using Doppler lidars for aerosol measurements to support air quality and the safety of aviation. Further research can be done test the capability of depolarization ratio at this wavelength to differentiate elevated aerosol such as dust, pollution, volcanic ash from boundary layer aerosol.

Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds play a major role in the atmosphere by acting as precursors in the formation of secondary organic aerosols and by also affecting the concentration of ozone. The chemical diversity of BVOCs is vast but global emissions are dominated by isoprene and monoterpenes. The emissions of BVOCs from plants are affected by environmental parameters with temperature and light having significant impacts on the emissions. The Downy birch and Norway spruce trees consist of heavy and low volatile compounds but published results are limited up to observing sesquiterpenoid emissions from these two trees. In this study, the Vocus proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer is deployed in the field to examine BVOC emissions from Downy birch and Norway spruce trees. With higher mass resolution, shorter time response and lower limits of detection than conventional PTR instruments, the Vocus can effectively measure a broader range of VOCs. For the first time, real-time emissions of diterpenes and 12 different oxygenated compounds were observed from birch and spruce trees. The emission spectrum of birch was dominated by C10H17+, while for spruce C5H9+ contributed the most. The sum emissions of oxygenated compounds contributed significantly to the observed total emissions from both the trees. The emission rates of all compounds varied dramatically throughout the period due to fluctuations in temperature and light. Due to lack of data from spruce, conclusive results for temperature and light response on terpene emissions could not be drawn. For birch, the emission rates were well explained by the temperature and temperature-light algorithms. The terpene emissions modelled using both algorithms correlated similarly with experimental data making it difficult to decisively conclude if the emissions originated from synthesis or pools.