Atmospheric pollen is a well-known health threat causing allergy-related diseases. As a biogenic aerosol, pollen also affects the climate by directly absorbing and scattering solar radiation and by acting as cloud condensation or ice nuclei. A good understanding of pollen distribution and transport mechanisms is needed to evaluate the environmental and health impacts of pollen. However, pollen observations are usually performed close to ground and vertical information, which could be used to evaluate and improve pollen transport models, is widely missing. In this thesis, the applicability of lidar measurements to detect pollen in the atmosphere is investigated. For this purpose, measurements of the multiwavelength Raman polarization lidar PollyXT at the rural forest site in Vehmasmäki (Kuopio), Eastern Finland have been utilized. The depolarization ratio was identified to be the most valuable optical property for the detection of atmospheric pollen, as nonspherical pollen like pine and spruce pollen causes high depolarization ratios. However, detected depolarization ratios coincide with typical values for dusty mixtures and additional information such as backward trajectories need to be considered to ensure the absence of other depolarizing aerosols like dust. To separate pollen from background aerosol, a method to estimate the optical properties of pure pollen using lidar measurements was developed. Under the assumption that the Ångström exponent of pure pollen is zero, the depolarization ratio of pure pollen can be estimated. Depolarization ratios for birch and pine pollen at 355 and 532 nm were determined and suggested a wavelength dependence of the depolarization ratio. To further investigate this wavelength dependence, the possibility to use depolarization measurements of Halo Doppler lidars (1565 nm) was explored. In the lower troposphere, Halo Doppler lidars can provide reasonable depolarization values with comparable quality to PollyXT measurements. Finally, measurements of PollyXT and a Halo StreamLine Doppler lidar were used to determine the depolarization ratio at three wavelengths. A wavelength dependence of the particle depolarization ratio with maximum depolarization at 532 nm was found. This could be a characteristic feature of non-spherical pollen and the key to distinguish pollen from other depolarizing aerosol types.
Experimental techniques for the calibration of lidar depolarization channels in EARLINET
