1. Assessment of Upper atmospheric plume models using Calipso Satellites and Environmental Assessment and Forecasting Chowdhury Nazmi, Yonghua Wu, Barry Gross, Lina Cordero, Zaw Han, Nabin Malakar, Fred Moshary Optical Remote Sensing Lab & NOAA-CREST, City College of New York, New York, NY 10031, USA. E-mail: cnazmi148@yahoo.com Abstract Regional aloft aerosol plumes by CLN-lidar and model Summary Acknowledgement. This work is partially supported by NOAA under the grant CREST agreement #NA17AE1625. Authors greatly appreciate the coordinated lidar data at UMBC and Hampton Univ., and data product from NASA-CALIPSO, MODIS, GOES, NAAPS model developed by the Naval Research Lab. The ability to identify and quantify plumes is critical for better interpreting passive satellite observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD). Aloft aerosol layers injected or transported from dust storms and biomass burning can make a substantial contribution to total aerosol optical depth (AOD), thus play critical role on satellite remote sensing of air quality such as surface PM 2.5. A number of numerical models which combine meteorological transport and satellite observations has been developed which attempt to quantify plume vertical height and extent including the Navy’s NAAPS model and NOAA’s GOES ASDTA product. In this presentation, we explore the performance of these models in plume forecasts based on statistical comparisons of Calipso data at different horizontal resolutions. In addition, we also explore the potential of using assimilating satellite total AOD to improve plume forecasts and show that the 12 hour forecasts of plume height and extend can benefit from MODIS AOD. We illustrate with examples how these plumes can interact with the PBL and effect local air quality. Finally we analyze the effect of aloft smoke AOD in the relation of MODIS AOD and station pm2.5 of NY State. Aloft Smoke Plume interaction with PBL NAAPS-model vs. CALIPSO : Aloft-smoke-plumes  Consistent identification of aloft-dust-layers except some cloud contamination.  The regional aloft aerosol plumes transports to the eastern US are observed from a NOAA-CREST Lidar Network (CLN) and further verified by NAAPS model. The case comparisons between NAAPS-model and CLN indicate the similar vertical structures of aerosol at 18:00UTC (daytime, model assimilation with MODIS/Aqua AOD) but large discrepancy on the profile and extinction in the night-time.  Our future work will be assessing AOD to PM2.5 relationship based on the presence of aloft smoke plume using GOES ASDTA and NAAPS smoke data for the year of 2010 to 2012. The effect of aloft smoke plume presence on aod to pm relationship will be analyzed. Aloft-dust-plumes from US west to east coast  A long-scale of aloft-aerosol-plume event was observed by a regional NOAA- CREST lidar network(CLN) along the east coast of US during March 6 -7, 2012.  The US Navy Lab NAAPS model AOD demonstrate this regional dust plumes transport to the US east coast. (Higher dust-AOD; 1° x 1° grid, 24 vertical levels and 6-hr time res.)  Similar vertical structure of aloft-aerosol-layer and heights between lidar and NAAPS model at 18:00 UTC (daytime, MODIS/Aqua AOD retrieval & model assimilation).  Large-scale and consistent smoke plumes regions indicated by high-AOD.  Identify aloft-aerosol-layer heights (mark ‘o’ ) with the wavelet analysis from NAAPS-profile. Similar heights with CALIPSO product.  Consistent occurrence of aloft-aerosol-layer along CALIPSO track between NAAPS and CALIPSO, but thin layer from CALIPSO product. Also consistent plume height with the ground-lidar. CCNY daytime UMBC daytime HU daytime MODIS/Aqua AOD Layer-top from model Layer-base Layer-top from model Layer-base CALIPSO track CALIPSO track totalAOD dustAOD SmkAOD Model ext.  2.5 Aloft aerosol CCNY night -time UMBC night -time HU night -time Case-1: 2011-07-19 Smoke transport from Canada NAAPS-model smoke AOD Aerosol time-height distribution by lidar NAAPS-model profile Case-2: 2012-06-29 Smoke transport from Colorado wildfires Aerosol time-height distribution by lidar NAAPS-model profile These examples shows how aloft plumes can enter through the Planetary Boundary level and effect surface level local air quality. Both aerosol time-height distribution by CCNY LIDAR and NAAPS-Model profile show consistency for the above two smoke events. MODIS AOD and Station PM2.5 relationship for NY State We collected Modis Aqua/Terra aod over NY state and plotted them against the Station PM2.5 for summer of 2010 to 2012. The low Correlation Coefficient can be caused by many smoke events seen through summer of 2010 to 2012 from GOES ASDTA smoke data and backscattering lidar images from CCNY lidar. We plan to filter out the days with the most smoke aod and get a better correlation between the Modis Aod and Station PM2.5.