A new method for measuring the imaginary part of refractive index structure parameter in the urban surface layer

Atmospheric refractive index consists of both the real and the imaginary parts. The intensity of refractive index fluctuation is usually expressed as the refractive index structure parameter, whose real part reflects the strength of the atmospheric turbulence while the imaginary part reflects the absorption in the light path. The large aperture scintillometer (LAS) is often used to measure the structure parameter of the real part of atmospheric refractive index, and the sensible and latent heat fluxes can further be obtained, while the influence of the imaginary part is ignored, or thought to be a noise. Based on the expression for the spectrum of the logarithmic light intensity fluctuation caused by the imaginary part of refractive index, new expressions for the logarithmic intensity fluctuation variance and the structure function related to the imaginary part of refractive index are derived. Then a simple expression for the imaginary part of the atmospheric refractive index structure parameter (ARISP) is obtained. It can be conveniently used to measure the imaginary part of the ARISP from LAS. Experiments of light propagation were performed in the urban surface layer and the imaginary part of the ARISP was calculated. The experimental results showed a good agreement with the presented theory. The results also suggested that, the imaginary part of ARISP shows a different variation from the real part of ARISP. For the light with the wavelength of 0.62 μm, the variation of the imaginary part of ARISP is related to both the turbulent transport process and the spatial distribution characteristics of aerosols. Based on the theoretical analysis, it can be expected that the method presented in this study can be applied to measuring the imaginary part of the ARISP caused by the trace gas, if the light wavelength is selected within the corresponding gas absorption region.