Planetary boundary-layer height is an important physical quantity for weather forecasting models and atmosphere environment assessment. A method of simultaneously extracting the surface-layer height (SLH), mixed-layer height (MLH), and aerosol optical properties, which include aerosol extinction coefficient (AEC) and aerosol optical depth (AOD), based on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the same coherent Doppler wind lidar (CDWL) is proposed. The method employs wavelet covariance transform to locate the SLH and MLH using the local maximum positions and an automatic algorithm of dilation operation. AEC and AOD are determined by the fitting curve using the SNR equation. Furthermore, the method demonstrates the influential mechanism of optical properties on the SLH and MLH. MLH is linearly correlated with AEC and AOD because of solar heating increasing. The results were verified by the data of an ocean island site in China.
Keywords: aerosol extinction coefficient (AEC); aerosol optical depth (AOD); dilation operation; planetary boundary layer (PBL); wavelet covariance transform (WCT).