Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques
<p>The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) represents the lowermost part of the atmosphere directly in contact with the Earth's surface. The estimation of its depth is of crucial importance in meteorology and for anthropogenic pollution studies. ABL height (ABLH) measurements are usually far...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2021-03-01
|
Series: | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
Online Access: | https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/4249/2021/acp-21-4249-2021.pdf |
id |
doaj-260fa0688b4b4806aa28d327d1c5c0ab |
---|---|
record_format |
Article |
spelling |
doaj-260fa0688b4b4806aa28d327d1c5c0ab2021-03-19T13:08:32ZengCopernicus PublicationsAtmospheric Chemistry and Physics1680-73161680-73242021-03-01214249426510.5194/acp-21-4249-2021Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniquesG. Vivone0G. D'Amico1D. Summa2D. Summa3S. Lolli4S. Lolli5A. Amodeo6D. Bortoli7D. Bortoli8G. Pappalardo9Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito, ItalyConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito, ItalyConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito, ItalyEngineering School, University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito, ItalyDepartment of Physics, Kent State University (Florence Campus), 800 E Summit St, Kent, OH 44240, USAConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito, ItalyICT Institute of Earth Sciences and Dept. of Physics, School of Sciences and Technology and IIFA, Univ. of Évora, 7000-671 Évora, PortugalEaRSLab Earth Remote Sensing Laboratory, Univ. of Évora, 7000-671 Évora, PortugalConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito, Italy<p>The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) represents the lowermost part of the atmosphere directly in contact with the Earth's surface. The estimation of its depth is of crucial importance in meteorology and for anthropogenic pollution studies. ABL height (ABLH) measurements are usually far from being adequate, both spatially and temporally. Thus, different remote sensing sources can be of great help in growing both the spatial and temporal ABLH measurement capabilities. To this aim, aerosol backscatter profiles are widely used as a proxy to retrieve the ABLH. Hence, the scientific community is making remarkable efforts in developing automatic ABLH retrieval algorithms applied to lidar observations. In this paper, we propose a ABLH estimation algorithm based on image processing techniques applied to the composite image of the total attenuated backscatter coefficient. A pre-processing step is applied to the composite total backscatter image based on morphological filters to properly set-up and adjust the image to detect edges. As final step, the detected edges are post-processed through both mathematical morphology and an object-based analysis. The performance of the proposed approach is assessed on real data acquired by two different lidar systems, deployed in Potenza (Italy) and Évora (Portugal), belonging to the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). The proposed approach has shown higher performance than the benchmark consisting of some state-of-the-art ABLH estimation methods.</p>https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/4249/2021/acp-21-4249-2021.pdf |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
G. Vivone G. D'Amico D. Summa D. Summa S. Lolli S. Lolli A. Amodeo D. Bortoli D. Bortoli G. Pappalardo |
spellingShingle |
G. Vivone G. D'Amico D. Summa D. Summa S. Lolli S. Lolli A. Amodeo D. Bortoli D. Bortoli G. Pappalardo Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
author_facet |
G. Vivone G. D'Amico D. Summa D. Summa S. Lolli S. Lolli A. Amodeo D. Bortoli D. Bortoli G. Pappalardo |
author_sort |
G. Vivone |
title |
Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques |
title_short |
Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques |
title_full |
Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques |
title_fullStr |
Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques |
title_full_unstemmed |
Atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques |
title_sort |
atmospheric boundary layer height estimation from aerosol lidar: a new approach based on morphological image processing techniques |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
series |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
issn |
1680-7316 1680-7324 |
publishDate |
2021-03-01 |
description |
<p>The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) represents the lowermost part of the atmosphere directly in contact with the Earth's surface. The estimation of its depth is of crucial importance in meteorology and for anthropogenic pollution studies. ABL height (ABLH) measurements are usually far from being adequate, both spatially and temporally. Thus, different remote sensing sources can be of great help in growing both the spatial and temporal ABLH measurement capabilities. To this aim, aerosol backscatter profiles are widely used as a proxy to retrieve the ABLH. Hence, the scientific community is making remarkable efforts in developing automatic ABLH retrieval algorithms applied to lidar observations. In this paper, we propose a ABLH estimation algorithm based on image processing techniques applied to the composite image of the total attenuated backscatter coefficient. A pre-processing step is applied to the composite total backscatter image based on morphological filters to properly set-up and adjust the image to detect edges. As final step, the detected edges are post-processed through both mathematical morphology and an object-based analysis. The performance of the proposed approach is assessed on real data acquired by two different lidar systems, deployed in Potenza (Italy) and Évora (Portugal), belonging to the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). The proposed approach has shown higher performance than the benchmark consisting of some state-of-the-art ABLH estimation methods.</p> |
url |
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/4249/2021/acp-21-4249-2021.pdf |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT gvivone atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT gdamico atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT dsumma atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT dsumma atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT slolli atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT slolli atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT aamodeo atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT dbortoli atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT dbortoli atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques AT gpappalardo atmosphericboundarylayerheightestimationfromaerosollidaranewapproachbasedonmorphologicalimageprocessingtechniques |
_version_ |
1724212959993921536 |