Polarimeter + Lidar–Derived Aerosol Particle Number Concentration

In this study, we propose a simple method to derive vertically resolved aerosol particle number concentration ( N ) using combined polarimetric and lidar remote sensing observations. This relies on accurate polarimeter retrievals of the fine-mode column-averaged extinction cross section measurements coefficient such as those provided by multiwavelength high spectral resolution lidar. We compare resulting + product in situ data collected airborne instruments during NASA cloud meteorology interactions over western Atlantic experiment (ACTIVATE). Based all 35 joint ACTIVATE flights 2020, find total 32 collocated profiles that occur 11 separate days, which contain 322 cloud-free altitude bins 150 m resolution. demonstrate agrees within 106% for 90% points. also similar agreement 121% polarimeter-derived . range-normalized mean absolute deviation (NMAD) is 21%, NMAD 16%. Taken together, these findings suggest error polarimeter-only are magnitude represent significant improvement upon current estimates