U.S. Air Quality

Smoke in Los Angeles seen by LIDAR

Northerly winds have transported smoke from the California fires into southern California. See Nikisa's post below showing MODIS imagery of the smoke now covering large portions of the state. Plumes between 1.5 and 2.5 km were observed in Los Angeles by researchers at The Aerospace Corporation using a combined Rayleigh and Raman lidar (click to enlarge the image below, provided by Steven Beck at Aerospace Corporation). The lidar, colocated with a sun photometer, operates at The Aerospace Corp El Segundo site, located 2 miles inland just a mile southeast of Los Angeles Airport. The light portions of the image correspond to increased particle backscatter in units of molecular backscatter.