From hygroscopic aerosols to cloud droplets: The HygrA-CD campaign in the Athens basin - An overview.

The international experimental campaign Hygroscopic Aerosols to Cloud Droplets (HygrA-CD), organized in the Greater Athens Area (GAA), Greece from 15 May to 22 June 2014, aimed to study the physico-chemical properties of aerosols and their impact on the formation of clouds in the convective Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL). We found that under continental (W-NW-N) and Etesian (NE) synoptic wind flow and with a deep moist PBL (~2-2.5km height), mixed hygroscopic (anthropogenic, biomass burning and marine) particles arrive over the GAA, and contribute to the formation of convective non-precipitating PBL clouds (of ~16-20µm mean diameter) with vertical extent up to 500m. Under these conditions, high updraft velocities (1-2ms-1) and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations (~2000cm-3 at 1% supersaturation), generated clouds with an estimated cloud droplet number of ~600cm-3. Under Saharan wind flow conditions (S-SW) a shallow PBL (<1-1.2km height) develops, leading to much higher CCN concentrations (~3500-5000cm-3 at 1% supersaturation) near the ground; updraft velocities, however, were significantly lower, with an estimated maximum cloud droplet number of ~200cm-3 and without observed significant PBL cloud formation. The largest contribution to cloud droplet number variance is attributed to the updraft velocity variability, followed by variances in aerosol number concentration.

Optical, size and mass properties of mixed type aerosols in Greece and Romania as observed by synergy of lidar and sunphotometers in combination with model simulations: a case study.

A coordinated experimental campaign aiming to study the aerosol optical, size and mass properties was organized in September 2012, in selected sites in Greece and Romania. It was based on the synergy of lidar and sunphotometers. In this paper we focus on a specific campaign period (23-24 September), where mixed type aerosols (Saharan dust, biomass burning and continental) were confined from the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) up to 4-4.5 km height. Hourly mean linear depolarization and lidar ratio values were measured inside the dust layers, ranging from 13 to 29 and from 44 to 65sr, respectively, depending on their mixing status and the corresponding air mass pathways over Greece and Romania. During this event the columnar Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) values ranged from 0.13 to 0.26 at 532 nm. The Lidar/Radiometer Inversion Code (LIRIC) and the Polarization Lidar Photometer Networking (POLIPHON) codes were used and inter-compared with regards to the retrieved aerosol (fine and coarse spherical/spheroid) mass concentrations, showing that LIRIC generally overestimates the aerosol mass concentrations, in the case of spherical particles. For non-spherical particles the difference in the retrieved mass concentration profiles from these two codes remained smaller than ±20%. POLIPHON retrievals showed that the non-spherical particles reached concentrations of the order of 100-140 µg/m(3) over Romania compared to 50-75 µg/m(3) over Greece. Finally, the Dust Regional Atmospheric Model (DREAM) model was used to simulate the dust concentrations over the South-Eastern Europe.