The AMMA mulid network for aerosol characterization in West Africa

TL;DR

This paper presents the deployment of low-power MULID lidar networks in West Africa for aerosol optical property characterization, including instrument design, data analysis, and case studies linked to biomass burning emissions.

Contribution

It introduces a new portable MULID lidar system and a detailed data inversion method, applied in West Africa for aerosol monitoring within the AMMA project.

Findings

Successful deployment of MULID lidar networks at three remote sites.

Analysis of aerosol profiles in relation to biomass burning emissions.

Insights into aerosol optical properties during the 2006 campaign.

Abstract

Three ground based portable low power consumption microlidars (MULID) have been built and deployed at three remote sites in Banizoumbou (Niger), Cinzana (Mali) and M'Bour (Senegal) in the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (AMMA) project for the characterization of aerosols optical properties. A description of the instrument and a discussion of the data inversion method, including a careful analysis of measurement uncertainties (systematic and statistical errors) are presented. Some case studies of typical lidar profiles observed over the Banizoumbou site during 2006 are shown and discussed with respect to the AERONET 7-day back-trajectories and the biomass burning emissions from the Combustion Emission database for the AMMA campaign.