LIDAR OBSERVATIONS OF AEROSOL LAYERS IN UPPER ATMOSPHERE OF KAMCHATKA AND GRAVITOPHOTOPHORETIC GIPOTHESIS OF THEIR FORMATION

  1. Siberian Federal University
  2. Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway Transport, Krasnoyarsk
  3. Institute of Cosmophysical Research and Radio Wave Propagation FEB RAS

Regularly observed peaks of aerosol scattering in upper stratosphere at 35-50 km and in mesosphere at 60-75
km were registered in lidar observations carried out during the year from October 2007 to September 2008 in
Kamchatka. Typical season features of the aerosol layer occurence have been found out. Also the calculations of
aerosol particle levitation heights under the gravitophotophoretic forces were carried out for the same days and
conditions of observations with use of satellite data of atmospheric temperature and the Earth’s IR radiation.
Binding to the specific conditions of geographic point and time distinguish these caclulation results from the
results in [1] were the standard atmosphere model was used. According to the calculations the aerosol particle
levitation picutre had two-layer structure, and these levitation zones corresponded to the altitude ranges of
aerosol layers observations. Variations of the levitation zone position had the similar season features with
altitudes of aerosol layer observations. Thereby, formation of mesospheric aerosol layers at altitudes of 60-75
km and stratospheric layers at altitudes of 35-50 km can be explained by gravitophotophoretic force able to
promote aerosol particle levitation at these altitudes. The work was supported by Ministry of Science and
Education of Russian Federation (RNP, project No. 2.1.1/6996). 1. Cheremisin A.A., Vassilyev Yu.V., Horvath
H. Gravito-photophoresis and aerosol stratification in the atmosphere // J. Aerosol Sci.- 2005.- V. 36.- N 11.-
Р. 1277-1299.