Influence of molecular scattering models on aerosol optical properties measured by high spectral resolution lidar.

The influence of molecular scattering models on aerosol optical properties measured by high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) is experimentally investigated and theoretically evaluated. The measurements analyzed in this study were made during three field campaigns by the German Aerospace Center airborne HSRL. The influence of the respective theoretical model on spaceborne HSRL retrievals is also estimated. Generally, the influence on aerosol extinction coefficient can be neglected for both airborne and spaceborne HSRLs. However, the influence on aerosol backscatter coefficient depends on aerosol concentration and is larger than 3% (6%) at ground level for airborne (spaceborne) HSRLs, which is considerable for the spaceborne HSRL, especially when the aerosol concentration is low. A comparison of the HSRL measurements and coordinated ground-based sunphotometer measurements shows that the influence of the model is observable and comparable to the measurement error of the lidar system.

Iodine-filter-based high spectral resolution lidar for atmospheric temperature measurements.

This paper presents a method for measuring atmosphere temperature profile using a single iodine filter as frequency discriminator. This high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) is a system reconfigured with the transmitter of a mobile Doppler wind lidar and with a receiving subsystem redesigned to pass the backscattering optical signal through the iodine cell twice to filter out the aerosol scattering signal and to allow analysis of the molecular scattering spectrum, thus measuring temperatures. We report what are believed to be the first results of vertical temperature profiling from the ground to 16 km altitude by this lidar system (power-aperture product=0.35 Wm(2)). Concurrent observations of an L band radiosonde were carried out on June 14 and August 3, 2008, in good agreement with HSRL temperature profiles.