Determination of smoke plume and layer heights using scanning lidar data

Area of Science:

• Atmospheric Science
• Remote Sensing
• Environmental Monitoring

Background:

• Wildfire smoke plumes pose significant air quality and visibility challenges.
• Accurate assessment of smoke plume rise and dispersion is crucial for predicting pollutant transport.
• Existing methods for smoke plume analysis may lack the resolution or mobility required for comprehensive investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel methodology for analyzing mobile scanning lidar data to investigate smoke plume rise and dispersion.
• To introduce the atmospheric heterogeneity height indicator (HHI) for visualizing smoke plume vertical extent.
• To demonstrate the simplicity and robustness of the proposed lidar-based methodology.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing mobile scanning lidar data for atmospheric measurements.
• Applying a lidar-signal transformation technique to derive the HHI.
• Analyzing lidar scans from wildfire-polluted areas, without requiring initial lidar signal offset subtraction.

Main Results:

• The atmospheric heterogeneity height indicator (HHI) was successfully created, mapping smoke plume heights.
• The methodology proved to be simple and robust in practical application.
• Examples of HHI derived from real-world wildfire smoke data were presented and discussed.

Conclusions:

• The developed methodology offers an effective way to analyze mobile scanning lidar data for smoke plume studies.
• The HHI provides a clear visualization of smoke plume vertical distribution.
• This approach enhances the capability for high-resolution smoke dispersion and plume rise investigations.