Stimulated emission of phonons in an acoustic cavity

This thesis will present experiments on stimulated emission of phonons in dilute ruby following complete population inversion of the Zeeman-split E(2E) Kramers doublet by selective pulsed optical pumping into its upper component. The resulting phonon avalanches are detected by use of the R1 luminescence emanating from the inverted zone, located near the end face where the laser beam enters the crystal. The phonons appear to team up into a highly directional phonon beam. The phonon frequency is tunable from, say, 10-100 GHz via the magnetic field splitting of the doublet. Remarkably, the population of the lower doublet component, which is a measure of the number of phonons generated, evolves with a sequence of distinct steps. The time interval in between these steps equals 2L/v, corresponding to the time the phonons need to return to the inverted zone by reflection at the opposite end face at a distance L. The end faces of the ruby crystal thus form an acoustic cavity. The phonon beam passes the inverted zone repeatedly to be amplified further, in a manner similar to light in an optical laser. In other words, the basic ingredients for a phonon laser have been established

First validation of GOME-2/MetOp Absorbing Aerosol Height using EARLINET lidar observations

he aim of this study is to investigate the potential of the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) instruments, aboard the Meteorological Operational (MetOp)-A, MetOp-B and MetOp-C satellite programme platforms, to deliver accurate geometrical features of lofted aerosol layers. For this purpose, we use archived ground-based lidar data from stations available from the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET) database. The data are post-processed using the wavelet covariance transform (WCT) method in order to extract geometrical features such as the planetary boundary layer (PBL) height and the cloud boundaries. To obtain a significant number of collocated and coincident GOME-2 - EARLINET cases for the period between January 2007 and September 2019, 13 lidar stations, distributed over different European latitudes, contributed to this validation. For the 172 carefully screened collocations, the mean bias was found to be -0.18 ± 1.68 km, with a near-Gaussian distribution. On a station basis, and with a couple of exceptions where very few collocations were found, their mean biases fall in the ± 1 km range with an associated standard deviation between 0.5 and 1.5 km. Considering the differences, mainly due to the temporal collocation and the difference, between the satellite pixel size and the point view of the ground-based observations, these results can be quite promising and demonstrate that stable and extended aerosol layers as captured by the satellite sensors are verified by the ground-based data. We further present an in-depth analysis of a strong and long-lasting Saharan dust intrusion over the Iberian Peninsula. We show that, for this well-developed and spatially well-spread aerosol layer, most GOME-2 retrievals fall within 1 km of the exact temporally collocated lidar observation for the entire range of 0 to 150 km radii. This finding further testifies for the capabilities of the MetOp-borne instruments to sense the atmospheric aerosol layer heights.Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 654109, 87111

Improved SIFTER v2 algorithm for long-term GOME-2A satellite retrievals of fluorescence with a correction for instrument degradation

Solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) data from satellites are increasingly used as a proxy for photosynthetic activity by vegetation and as a constraint on gross primary production. Here we report on improvements in the algorithm to retrieve mid-morning (09:30 LT) SIF estimates on the global scale from the GOME-2 sensor on the MetOp-A satellite (GOME-2A) for the period 2007-2019. Our new SIFTER (Sun-Induced Fluorescence of Terrestrial Ecosystems Retrieval) v2 algorithm improves over a previous version by using a narrower spectral window that avoids strong oxygen absorption and being less sensitive to water vapour absorption, by constructing stable reference spectra from a 6-year period (2007-2012) of atmospheric spectra over the Sahara and by applying a latitude-dependent zero-level adjustment that accounts for biases in the data product. We generated stable, good-quality SIF retrievals between January 2007 and June 2013, when GOME-2A degradation in the near infrared was still limited. After the narrowing of the GOME-2A swath in July 2013, we characterised the throughput degradation of the level-1 data in order to derive reflectance corrections and apply these for the SIF retrievals between July 2013 and December 2018. SIFTER v2 data compare well with the independent NASA v2.8 data product. Especially in the evergreen tropics, SIFTER v2 no longer shows the underestimates against other satellite products that were seen in SIFTER v1. The new data product includes uncertainty estimates for individual observations and is best used for mostly clear-sky scenes and when spectral residuals remain below a certain spectral autocorrelation threshold. Our results support the use of SIFTER v2 data being used as an independent constraint on photosynthetic activity on regional to global scales.</p

Development, Production and Evaluation of Aerosol Climate Data Records from European Satellite Observations (Aerosol_cci)

Producing a global and comprehensive description of atmospheric aerosols requires integration of ground-based, airborne, satellite and model datasets. Due to its complexity, aerosol monitoring requires the use of several data records with complementary information content. This paper describes the lessons learned while developing and qualifying algorithms to generate aerosol Climate Data Records (CDR) within the European Space Agency (ESA) Aerosol_cci project. An iterative algorithm development and evaluation cycle involving core users is applied. It begins with the application-specific refinement of user requirements, leading to algorithm development, dataset processing and independent validation followed by user evaluation. This cycle is demonstrated for a CDR of total Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) from two subsequent dual-view radiometers. Specific aspects of its applicability to other aerosol algorithms are illustrated with four complementary aerosol datasets. An important element in the development of aerosol CDRs is the inclusion of several algorithms evaluating the same data to benefit from various solutions to the ill-determined retrieval problem. The iterative approach has produced a 17-year AOD CDR, a 10-year stratospheric extinction profile CDR and a 35-year Absorbing Aerosol Index record. Further evolution cycles have been initiated for complementary datasets to provide insight into aerosol properties (i.e., dust aerosol, aerosol absorption).Peer reviewe

Validation of the absorbing aerosol height product from GOME-2 using CALIOP aerosol layer information

Within the framework of aviation safety, knowledge on the location and height of volcanic ash layers is of extreme importance. Several ground based instruments (such as lidars) can provide detailed information on the height and vertical extent of these ash layers, however with a limited spatial coverage. The biggest advantage of satellite instruments is their ability to have near daily global coverage which makes them the perfect candidate for locating and tracking aerosol layers around the globe. Since the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment 2 (GOME-2) instrument is carried on the MetOp series of operational satellites, it is designed to cover a long time period from 2007 until 2022 (and beyond) and global coverage is achieved within one day. The GOME-2 Absorbing Aerosol Height (AAH) is a new product for aerosol detection, developed by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) which uses the Absorbing Aerosol Index (AAI) to detect the presence of absorbing aerosol and derives the actual height of the absorbing aerosol layer in the O2-A band using the Fast Retrieval Scheme for Clouds from the Oxygen A band (FRESCO) algorithm. The first results of a quantitative validation of the AAH product focusing on case studies of volcanic eruptions will be presented here. For a total of 15 different volcanic eruptions, GOME-2 AAH data are compared to the minimum and maximum aerosol layer height provided by Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) for pixels within 100 km distance from each other. For GOME-2A and -2B, about 50 to 60 % of the AAH pixels are within the EUMETSAT threshold requirements (for layers which are located lower than 10 km, the maximum absolute difference should be within 3 km; for layers which are located higher than 10 km, the maximum absolute difference should be within 4 km), while for GOME-2C this is about 70 %. The optimal requirement threshold (for layers which are located lower than 10 km, the maximum absolute difference should be within 1 km; for layers which are located higher than 10 km, the maximum absolute difference should be within 2 km) is reached for GOME-2A, GOME-2B and GOME-2C in 17 %, 28 % and 41.5 % of the cases. If only tropospheric aerosol species are studied, the results improve. This can also be seen when looking at the mean error of GOME-2. GOME-2A, GOME-2B and GOME-2C are able to represent the minimum CALIOP layer height with a mean error of −2.5 ± 5 km, −1.2 ± 5.9 km and −2 ± 5.8 km respectively. If the stratospheric aerosol layers are removed from the data, the errors obtained are −0.2 ± 3.6 km, −0.1 ± 5.4 km and −0.8 ± 3.8 km for GOME-2A, GOME-2B and GOME-2C respectively (for the minimum CALIOP layer height). The results from two specific case studies (i.e. the Calbuco eruption in 2015 and the Sarychev Peak eruption in 2009) are highlighted and show that GOME-2 underestimates the height of volcanic ash layers. Especially if the layers are located at altitudes above 15 km, since GOME-2 is not able to detect these layers due to the loss of sensitivity of the FRESCO algorithm at these algorithms

How big is an OMI pixel?

The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) is a push-broom imaging spectrometer, observing solar radiation backscattered by the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The incoming radiation is detected using a static imaging CCD (charge-coupled device) detector array with no moving parts, as opposed to most of the previous satellite spectrometers, which used a moving mirror to scan the Earth in the across-track direction. The field of view (FoV) of detector pixels is the solid angle from which radiation is observed, averaged over the integration time of a measurement. The OMI FoV is not quadrangular, which is common for scanning instruments, but rather super-Gaussian shaped and overlapping with the FoV of neighbouring pixels. This has consequences for pixel-area-dependent applications, like cloud fraction products, and visualisation.The shapes and sizes of OMI FoVs were determined pre-flight by theoretical and experimental tests but never verified after launch. In this paper the OMI FoV is characterised using collocated MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance measurements. MODIS measurements have a much higher spatial resolution than OMI measurements and spectrally overlap at 469 nm. The OMI FoV was verified by finding the highest correlation between MODIS and OMI reflectances in cloud-free scenes, assuming a 2-D super-Gaussian function with varying size and shape to represent the OMI FoV. Our results show that the OMPIXCOR product 75FoV corner coordinates are accurate as the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of a super-Gaussian FoV model when this function is assumed. The softness of the function edges, modelled by the super-Gaussian exponents, is different in both directions and is view angle dependent.The optimal overlap function between OMI and MODIS reflectances is scene dependent and highly dependent on time differences between overpasses, especially with clouds in the scene. For partially clouded scenes, the optimal overlap function was represented by super-Gaussian exponents around 1 or smaller, which indicates that this function is unsuitable to represent the overlap sensitivity function in these cases. This was especially true for scenes before 2008, when the time differences between Aqua and Aura overpasses was about 15 min, instead of 8 min after 2008. During the time between overpasses, clouds change the scene reflectance, reducing the correlation and influencing the shape of the optimal overlap function.Atmospheric Remote Sensin

Comparison of south-east Atlantic aerosol direct radiative effect over clouds from SCIAMACHY, POLDER and OMI-MODIS

The direct radiative effect (DRE) of aerosols above clouds has been found to be significant over the south-east Atlantic Ocean during the African biomass burning season due to elevated smoke layers absorbing radiation above the cloud deck. So far, global climate models have been unsuccessful in reproducing the high DRE values measured by various satellite instruments. Meanwhile, the radiative effects by aerosols have been identified as the largest source of uncertainty in global climate models. In this paper, three independent satellite datasets of DRE during the biomass burning season in 2006 are compared to constrain the south-east Atlantic radiation budget. The DRE of aerosols above clouds is derived from the spectrometer SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY (SCIAMACHY), the polarimeter Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances (POLDER), and collocated measurements by the spectrometer Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and the imager Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). All three datasets confirm the high DRE values during the biomass season, underlining the relevance of local aerosol effects. Differences between the instruments can be attributed mainly to sampling issues. When these are accounted for, the remaining differences can be explained by a higher cloud optical thickness (COT) derived from POLDER compared to the other instruments and a neglect of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at shortwave infrared (SWIR) wavelengths in the method used for SCIAMACHY and OMI-MODIS. The higher COT from POLDER by itself can explain the difference found in DRE between POLDER and the other instruments. The AOT underestimation is mainly evident at high values of the aerosol DRE and accounts for about a third of the difference between POLDER and OMI-MODIS DRE. The datasets from POLDER and OMI-MODIS effectively provide lower and upper bounds for the aerosol DRE over clouds over the south-east Atlantic, which can be used to challenge global circulation models (GCMs). Comparisons of model and satellite datasets should also account for sampling issues. The complementary DRE retrievals from OMI-MODIS and POLDER may benefit from upcoming satellite missions that combine spectrometer and polarimeter measurements.

Validation of the GOME-2 Absorbing Aerosol Height Product Using Elevated Layer Top Height Obtained from Thessaloniki EARLINET Station

The purpose of this research is to investigate the ability of GOME-2 instrument on board on the MetOpA and MetOpB platforms, to deliver accurate geometrical features of lofted aerosol layers over the area of Thessaloniki. For this purpose, we use ground-based lidar data from the Thessaloniki lidar station that belongs to EARLINET network. Results of the validation between absorbing aerosol height (ΑΑΗ) fromΑΑΗ) from) from GOME-2 sensor and THELISYS lidar dataset products will be presented

Validation of the GOME-2 Absorbing Aerosol Height Product Using Elevated Layer Top Height Obtained from Thessaloniki EARLINET Station

The purpose of this research is to investigate the ability of GOME-2 instrument on board on the MetOpA and MetOpB platforms, to deliver accurate geometrical features of lofted aerosol layers over the area of Thessaloniki. For this purpose, we use ground-based lidar data from the Thessaloniki lidar station that belongs to EARLINET network. Results of the validation between absorbing aerosol height (ΑΑΗ) fromΑΑΗ) from) from GOME-2 sensor and THELISYS lidar dataset products will be presented