The aim of this paper is to study the spatio-temporal evolution of a long-lasting Canadian biomass burning event that affected Europe in August 2018. The event produced biomass burning aerosol layers which were observed during their transport from Canada to Europe from the 16 to the 26 August 2018 using active remote sensing data from the space-borne system Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO). The total number of aerosol layers detected was 745 of which 42% were identified as pure biomass burning. The remaining 58% were attributed to smoke mixed with: polluted dust (34%), clean continental (10%), polluted continental (5%), desert dust (6%) or marine aerosols (3%). In this study, smoke layers, pure and mixed ones, were observed by the CALIPSO satellite from 0.8 and up to 9.6 km height above mean sea level (amsl.). The mean altitude of these layers was found between 2.1 and 5.2 km amsl. The Ångström exponent, relevant to the aerosol backscatter coefficient (532/1064 nm), ranged between 0.9 and 1.5, indicating aerosols of different sizes. The mean linear particle depolarization ratio at 532 nm for pure biomass burning aerosols was found equal to 0.05 ± 0.04, indicating near spherical aerosols. We also observed that, in case of no aerosol mixing, the sphericity of pure smoke aerosols does not change during the air mass transportation (0.05-0.06). On the contrary, when the smoke is mixed with dessert dust the mean linear particle depolarization ratio may reach values up to 0.20 ± 0.04, especially close to the African continent (Region 4).
Keywords: CALIPSO; Canadian smoke; Canadian wildfires 2018; Lidar; biomass burning aerosol.