ALBERT

Description: The day-long observation of a polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) by two co-located ground-based lidars at the Swedish research facility Esrange (67.9° N, 21.1° E) on 16 January 1997 is analyzed in terms of PSC dynamics and microphysics. Mesoscale modeling is utilized to simulate the meteorological setting of the lidar measurements. Microphysical properties of the PSC particles are retrieved by comparing the measured particle depolarization ratio and the PSC-averaged lidar ratio with theoretical optical data derived for different particle shapes. In the morning, nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles and then increasingly coexisting liquid ternary aerosol (LTA) were detected as outflow from a mountain wave-induced ice PSC upwind Esrange. The NAT PSC is in good agreement with simulations for irregular-shaped particles with length-to-diameter ratios between 0.75 and 1.25, maximum dimensions from 0.7 to 0.9 µm, and a number density from 8 to 12 cm-3 and the coexisting LTA droplets had diameters from 0.7 to 0.9 µm, a refractive index of 1.39 and a number density from 7 to 11 cm-3. The total amount of condensed HNO3 was in the range of 8–12 ppbv. The data provide further observational evidence that NAT forms via deposition nucleation on ice particles as a number of recently published papers suggest. By early afternoon the mountain-wave ice PSC expanded above the lidar site. Its optical data indicate a decrease in minimum particle size from 3 to 1.9 µm with time. Later on, following the weakening of the mountain wave, wave-induced LTA was observed only. Our study demonstrates that ground-based lidar measurements of PSCs can be comprehensively interpreted if combined with mesoscale meteorological data.