Athina Argyrouli

 

National Technical University of Athens

Laser Remote Sensing & Environmental Physics

Heroon Polytechneiou 9

15780 Zografou

Greece

 

icon phone     +30 210 7722987

 

icon mail     aargyrou@mail.ntua.gr
Athina Argyrouli

Research Project

Study of the planetary boundary layer and its influence on cloud properties

campaignLately, there is considerable climate-related interest in the so-called indirect aerosol effects related to boundary layer dynamics. The impact of aerosol-cloud interaction on cloud albedo and its efficiency to produce rain has a very low level of understanding (e.g. IPCC, 2007). The major goal of this research project is to relate in a meaningful way the cloud droplet formation at the top of the PBL to an elevated aerosol loading. The remote sensing techniques would allow the vertical profiling of aerosol loads within PBL. In-situ measurements would be used for the characterization of aerosols on the ground surface which may be representative for the PBL in the afternoon, when PBL is well mixed. Aerosol properties will be retrieved right before or right after cloud formation. The focus of this research is on low level clouds (i.e., stratocumulus, cumulus). The quantification analysis of cloud droplet formation and the cloud albedo estimation will be approached through space-borne remote sensing techniques by retrieving cloud properties such as the cloud droplets number concentration (CDNC) and cloud droplet effective radius (reff). These synergetic observations over the urban environment of Athens megacity will potentially reduce uncertainties on the impact of cloud-aerosol interaction on climate change. 

Information

During the Ph.D., several scientific objectives have been investigated, most notably:

  • Synergy from a multi-wavelength elastic aerosol lidar (EARLINET network) and sunphotometer (AERONET network) for retrieving vertical profiles of aerosol volume concentration using optimization algorithm (LIdar–Radiometer Inversion Code).
  • Aerosol optical and microphysical properties from a multi-wavelength Raman lidar. Both the in-house software and the Single Calculus Chain tool of EARLINET have been compared regarding the accuracy of aerosol vertical profiling. Then, the inversion of optical lidar data led to the retrieval of aerosol size distribution and complex refractive index at all detected aerosol layers within PBL and the Free Troposphere.
  • Calculation of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) spectra from aerosol size spectra derived from the κ-Koehler theory. In addition, synergistic measurements between a wind lidar and a Microwave Radiometer (MWR) allowed the determination of atmospheric thermodynamic state. Finally, the estimation of cloud droplet number using the adiabatic ascending parcel concept has been achieved.
  • Capture of aerosol vertical flux: estimation of the co-spectra of vertical wind component and aerosol backscatter coefficient (eddy-correlation method). A similar approach has been previously explored for a cloud-free PBL. My contribution aims to extend the methodology in the convective cloud-topped PBL by including the hygroscopic growth of aerosols due to water uptake during their vertical upward transport.

Curr. Vitae

Education:

National Technical University of Athens, Greece, 12/2012 - today.

Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science. Group: Laser Remote Sensing Unit, Physics Department, School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Field Campaigns: HygrA-CD, Athens, Greece. CHARADMexp, Crete, Greece. ACTRIS JRA1 campaign, Athens, Greece. Secondment: Mar. 2014 & Jan.- Feb. 2015, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.

Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands,09/2009 – 07/2012.

MSc. Electrical Engineering/ Track: Telecommunications. Group: Remote Sensing of the Environment

National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, 10/2003 - 04/2010.

MSc. Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Group:Communication, Electronic and Information Engineering

5th High School of Glyfada, Athens, Greece, 09/2000 – 06/2003.

High School Certificate. Recipient of distinction for High School Academic Excellence, awarded by the Greek Ministry of Education.

Research Projects:

Delft University
of Technology

“The impact of droplets' clustering on the radar backscattering from water clouds”

Description: In this project, a code simulating clustering effect of turbulence in water clouds has been developed. The computational results showed that the clustering of droplets results in a radar response which deviates from the one predicted by the standard radar theory.
National
Technical
University
of Athens		 “Analysis and simulation of WiMAX technology using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique”

Description: The main objective of the project was to simulate the physical layer of mobile WiMAX. The model evaluates the system performance in Bit-Error-Rate (BER) versus Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR).

Work Experience:

National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, 10/2014-06/2015

Laboratory teaching on Experimental Physics

• Oct. 2014 -Jan. 2015, Moment of inertia of solid bodies, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

• Mar.-Jun. 2015, Dependence of a lamp resistance versus temperature changes due to current flow within the circuit, School of Chemical Engineering.

Delft Environment Initiative, Delft, the Netherlands, 07/2011-04/2012
Project Coordinator, Climate City Campus, Delft University of Technology
The idea of CCC was born out of earth-face-changing developments: urbanization & climate change. CCC uses TUDelft campus as a living lab deploying a network of sensors on it and applying crowd sourcing.
As a project coordinator in Climate City Campus (CCC), my responsibilities consisted of:
• Decision making and evaluation of CCC scientific content & technical infrastructure.
• Administration of CCC projects’ structure and monitoring of project development.
• Organizing and coordinating the promotion campaigns and the scientific meetings.
• Management and updating CCC website and weblog.

Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 11/2010-02/2011

Climate & Seismology Division – Regional Climate Department (KS – RK)
As an intern in KNMI, I conducted research on:
• The possibility to implement a technique of two-color lidar measurements for estimating the drizzle drop size in
Cabauw Observatory.
Through this research:
• Two-wavelength method implemented by Westbrook et al. in Chilbolton Observatory was validated.
• For the computational simulations I modified Matlab codes solving the Mie scattering problem which were
initially written by Christian Mätzler. From the available wavelengths operated by the lidar instruments in
CESAR - Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research, I tried to determine the appropriate wavelengths
which would result in the desirable differential light absorption by the liquid water drizzle droplets.

• I performed sensitivity analysis for the complex value of refractive index of liquid water at the given operational
wavelengths. My reasoning lay in the fact that the imaginary part of water's refractive index indicates the portion
of the incoming light absorbed by the substance.

Intracom S.A. Telecom Solutions, Athens, Greece, 11/2007-01/2008

Member of SYS Group, Wireless Systems and Technologies, R&D Division

As an intern in Intracom S.A., I was involved with:
• The comprehension and analysis of the MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) Systems
• Programming in Matlab (Algorithms: ‘Maximum Likelihood - ML’, ‘Sphere Decoding - SD’)
• Conducting research on the ways of improving the complexity of the SD algorithm
• Limiting both the Bit Error Rate (BER) and the introduced sub-optimality

Computer Literacy:

MS Office Applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Publisher, Visio
Operating Systems: MS Windows, Linux
Scientific/Engineering applications:

Matlab (plus Simulink), LabVIEW, IDL, Mathematica, AutoCAD, PSpice, Feko, LaTeX
Programming Languages:

Object-oriented programming (C++, Java), C, FORTRAN, Visual Basic, Pascal, Lisp, Assembly, Html
Designing software:

Corel, Photoshop

Languages:

Greek Native Speaker
English Full professional proficiency (official working language)
Italian Limited working proficiency
French Elementary level

Complementary Training:

Summer schools ITaRS 1st Summer School: Aerosol Remote Sensing, Processes & Applications, Sep. 23-Oct. 4, 2013, Romanian Institute for Research and Development in Optoelectronics, Magurele, Romania. Working group: ”Determination of aerosol optical properties using lidar measurements and modeling”
ITaRS 2nd Summer School: Clouds and Precipitation: Observation and Processes, Sep. 8-17, 2014, Research Center Julich and University of Cologne, Germany. Working group: ”How much water does a cloud have?”

Science communication skills

 Science Communication Course, Claudia Iacobuta, the Network  Good Scientific Practice, Susanne Crewell, University of Cologne  Presentation Skills, Julie Stearns, Impulsplus  Entrepreneurship Day, Christian Schiefer, Selex SE, Harald Czekala, RPG, Marc Kley, University of Cologne, and George Georgoussis, Raymetrics  Academic Writing, Justin Mullins and Mark Buchanan, Write about Science  Career Development, Sandra de Koning, KLEUR!
Data assimilation Mar. 16-18, 2015, Seminar given by researchers from ECMWF (Reading, UK), Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

Supplementary Information:

Ph.D. grant 2012  MARIE CURIE Fellowship EU-funded project Initial Training for atmospheric Remote Sensing (ITaRS)
Poster award 2012  Best Poster Presentation Award - dedicated to the Memory of Prof. JimWeinman, 9th International Symposium on Tropospheric Profiling
Wikipedia entry May 2015  Contribution to Wikipedia article on “Atmospheric lidar”
Dissemination & Outreach Participation in a discussion on Climate Change between ITaRS fellows and university students, National Technical University of Athens, Greece  Active participation in a science show for school kids, Romanian Institute for Research and Development in Optoelectronics, Magurele, Romania  Group leader in science cafe ”Welcome to the Anthropocene – A planet transformed by humanity”, University of Cologne, Germany Participation in ITaRS fellows project ”Air quality eggs for Greek school kids”
Interests Ballet & Contemporary Dance, Yoga, Theater, Cinema, Literature, Graphic design & Web development, Art exhibitions, Animal lover

Publications

Journal Publications & Conference Proceedings

2012

Argyrouli A., N. Budko, H. Russchenberg and C. Unal, The effect of droplet clustering on the statistics of radar backscatter from water clouds, 9th International Symposium for Tropospheric Profiling, L’Aquila, Italy.

2015

Binietoglou, I., S. Basart, L. Alados-Arboledas, V. Amiridis, A. Argyrouli, H. Baars, J.M. Baldasano, D. Balis, L. Belegante, J.A. Bravo-Aranda, P. Burlizzi, V. Carrasco, A. Chaikovsky, A. Comeron, G. D’Amico, M. Filioglou, M.J. Granados-Munoz, J.L. Guerrero-Rascado, L. Ilic, P. Kokkalis, A. Maurizi, L. Mona, F. Monti, C. Munoz-Porcar, D. Nicolae, A. Papayannis, G. Pappalardo, G. Pejanovic, S.N. Pereira, M.R. Perrone, A. \ Pietruczuk, M. Posyniak, F. Rocadenbosch, A. Rodrıguez-Gomez, M. Sicard, N. Siomos, A. Szkop, E. Terradellas, A. Tsekeri, A. Vukovic, U. Wandinger, and J. Wagner, A methodology for investigating dust model performance using synergistic EARLINET/AERONET dust concentration retrievals, Atmos. Meas. Tech. 8(9), 3577–3600.

Papayannis, A., A. Argyrouli, P. Kokkalis, G. Tsaknakis, I. Binietoglou, S. Solomos, S. Kazadzis, S. Samaras, C. Boeckmann, P. Raptis, and V. Amiridis, Vertical profiles of aerosol optical and microphysical properties during a rare case of long-range transport of mixed biomass burning-polluted dust aerosols from the russian federation kazakhstan to Athens, Greece, 27th International Laser Radar Conference, New York, USA.

Papayannis, A., A. Argyrouli, D. Mueller, G. Tsaknakis, P. Kokkalis, I. Binietoglou, S. Kazadzis, S. Solomos and V. Amiridis, Tropospheric Vertical Profiles of aerosol optical, microphysical and concentration properties in the frame of the HygrA-CD campaign (Athens, Greece 2014): A case study of long-range transport of mixed aerosols, 27th International Laser Radar Conference, New York, USA. Bougiatioti A., A. Papayannis, S. Vratolis, A. Argyrouli, N. Mihalopoulos, M. Tsagkaraki, A. Nenes, and K. Eleftheriadis, Aerosol activity and Hygroscopicity combined with lidar data in the urban atmosphere of Athens, Greece in the frame of the HygrA-CD campaign, 27th International Laser Radar Conference, New York, USA.

2016 (submitted)

Papayannis A., A. Argyrouli, A. Bougiatioti, E. Remoundaki,S. Vratolis, A. Nenes, J. Hey, M. Komppula, S. Solomos, S. Kazadzis, R. Banks, L. Labzovsky, J. Kalogiros, K. Eleftheriadis, I. Mantas, C. Tzanis, I. Binietoglou, E. Giannakaki, C. Zerefos, From hygroscopic aerosols to cloud droplets: the HygrA-CD Campaign in the Athens basin - An overview, Science of the Total Environment.

Seminars & Conferences (with no extended abstract)

Sep. 2013

Argyrouli A., Study of cloud development above the Planetary Boundary Layer over Athens, Greece, ITaRS Summer School, Bucharest, Romania.

Feb. 2014

Argyrouli A., and A. Papayannis, Sensitivity analysis for aerosol concentration profile retrieved from NTUA lidar data & future perspectives, ITaRS Mid-term Review meeting, Potsdam, Germany.

Sep. 2014

Argyrouli A., A. Papayannis, S. Solomos, I. Christodoulakis, and C. Tzanis Towards quantification of aerosol vertical fluxes in the cloud-topped PBL over Athens, Greece during the HygrA-CD, 2nd ITaRS Summer School, J¨ ulich, Germany.

Oct. 2014

Argyrouli A., M. Komppula, K. Bougiatioti, S. Solomos, A. Papayannis, P. Kokkalis, and G. Tsaknakis, Aerosol fluxes in the cloudy PBL from synergetic measurements of an aerosol lidar and a Doppler lidar, ACTRIS-EARLINET Meeting, Lille, France.

Papayannis A., P. Kokkalis, A. Argyrouli, G. Tsaknakis, S. Solomos, L. Ilic, S. Nickovic, S. Kazantzis, E. Remoundaki, and V. Amiridis, Vertical profiles of aerosol optical and mass properties in the frame of the HygrA-CD campaign: A case study, ACTRIS EARLINET Meeting, Lille, France.

Sep. 2015

Fetfatzis, P., A. Argyrouli, J. Vande Hey, M. Komppula, S. Vratolis, A. Papayannis and K. Eleftheriadis, Conditions for closure between in situ optical-microphysical measurements and remote sensing techniques during the HygrA-CD campaign at DEM station, Athens, 21st European Aerosol Conference, Milan, Italy.