Californian Wildfire Smoke Over Europe: A First Example of the Aerosol Observing Capabilities of Aeolus Compared to Ground?Based Lidar

In September 2020, extremely strong wildfires in the western United States of America (i.e., mainly California) produced large amounts smoke, which was lifted into free troposphere. These biomass-burning-aerosol (BBA) layers were transported from US west coast toward central Europe within 3–4 days turning sky milky and receiving high media attention. The present study characterizes this pronounced smoke plume above Leipzig, Germany, using a ground-based multiwavelength-Raman-polarization lidar aerosol/cloud product ESA’s wind mission Aeolus. An exceptional smoke-AOT >0.4 measured, yielding to mean mass concentration 8 ?g m?3. 355 nm ratio moderate at around 40–50 sr. Aeolus-derived backscatter, extinction profiles agree well with observations PollyXT considering fact that Aeolus’ aerosol cloud products are still preliminary subject ongoing algorithm improvements.