Aerosol Vertical Structure and Optical Properties during Two Dust and Haze Episodes in a Typical Valley Basin City, Lanzhou of Northwest China

The vertical profiles of aerosol optical properties are vital to clarify their transboundary transport, climate forcing and environmental health influences. Based on synergistic measurements of multiple advanced detection techniques, this study investigated aerosol vertical structure and optical characteristics during two dust and haze events in Lanzhou of northwest China. Dust particles originated from remote deserts traveled eastward at different altitudes and reached Lanzhou on 10 April 2020. The trans-regional aloft (similar to 4.0 km) dust particles were entrained into the ground, and significantly modified aerosol optical properties over Lanzhou. The maximum aerosol extinction coefficient (sigma), volumetric depolarization ratio (VDR), optical depth at 500 nm (AOD(500)), and surface PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations were 0.4 similar to 1.5 km(-1), 0.15 similar to 0.30, 0.5 similar to 3.0, 200 similar to 590 mu g/m(3) and 134 mu g/m(3), respectively, under the heavy dust event, which were 3 to 11 times greater than those at the background level. The corresponding Angstrom exponent (AE(440-870)), fine-mode fraction (FMF) and PM2.5/PM10 values consistently persisted within the ranges of 0.10 to 0.50, 0.20 to 0.50, and 0.20 to 0.50, respectively. These findings implied a prevailing dominance of coarse-mode and irregular non-spherical particles. A severe haze episode stemming from local emissions appeared at Lanzhou from 30 December 2020 to 2 January 2021. The low-altitude transboundary transport aerosols seriously deteriorated the air quality level in Lanzhou, and aerosol loading, surface air pollutants and fine-mode particles strikingly increased during the gradual strengthening of haze process. The maximum AOD(500), AE(440-870nm), FMF, PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations, and PM2.5/PM10 were 0.65, 1.50, 0.85, 110 mu g/m(3), 180 mu g/m(3) and 0.68 on 2 January 2021, respectively, while the corresponding sigma and VDR at 0.20-0.80 km height were maintained at 0.68 km(-1) and 0.03 similar to 0.12, implying that fine-mode and spherical small particles were predominant. The profile of ozone concentration exhibited a prominent two-layer structure (0.60-1.40 km and 0.10-0.30 km), and both concentrations at two heights always remained at high levels (60 similar to 72 mu g/m(3)) during the entire haze event. Conversely, surface ozone concentration showed a significant decrease during severe haze period, with the peak value of 20 similar to 30 mu g/m(3), which was much smaller than that before haze pollution (similar to 80 mu g/m(3) on 30 December). Our results also highlighted that the vertical profile of aerosol extinction coefficient was a good proxy for evaluating mass concentrations of surface particulate matters under uniform mixing layers, which was of great scientific significance for retrieving surface air pollutants in remote desert or ocean regions. These statistics of the aerosol vertical profiles and optical properties under heavy dust and haze events in Lanzhou would contribute to investigate and validate the transboundary transport and radiative forcing of aloft aerosols in the application of climate models or satellite remote sensing.