Distortions of the extinction coefficient profile caused by systematic errors in lidar data

The influence of lidar data systematic errors on the retrieved particulate extinction coefficient profile in clear atmospheres is investigated. Particularly, two sources of the extinction coefficient profile distortions are analyzed: (1) a zero-line offset remaining after subtraction of an inaccurately determined signal background component and (2) a far-end incomplete overlap due to poor adjustment of the lidar system optics. Inversion results for simulated lidar signals, obtained with the near- and far-end solutions, are presented that show advantages of the near-end solution for clear atmospheres.     

Experimental determination of the lidar overlap profile with Raman lidar

The range-dependent overlap between the laser beam and the receiver field of view of a lidar can be determined experimentally if a pure molecular backscatter signal is measured in addition to the usually observed elastic backscatter signal, which consists of a molecular component and a particle component. Two methods, the direct determination of the overlap profile and an iterative approach, are presented and applied to a lidar measurement. The measured overlap profile accounts for actual system alignment and for all system parameters that are not explicitly known, such as actual laser beam divergence and spatial intensity distribution of the laser light.     

Analysis of the receiver response for a noncoaxial lidar system with fiber-optic output

The return signal of a noncoaxial lidar system with fiber-optic output is examined. The dependence of the overlap regions and the overlap factor of the system on the fiber diameter is calculated for several inclination angles between the laser beam and the optical receiver axes. The effect of central obstruction is included and both cases of Gaussian and quasi-Gaussian laser beam profiles are treated. The irradiance spatial distribution on the focal plane of the system is calculated and experimentally determined. Finally, an alignment procedure of the lidar system is described based on the comparison between the range-corrected lidar signal and the range-corrected exponentially attenuated Rayleigh backscattered coefficient.     

Aerosol lidar intercomparison in the framework of the EARLINET project. 2. Aerosol backscatter algorithms

An intercomparison of aerosol backscatter lidar algorithms was performed in 2001 within the framework of the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network to Establish an Aerosol Climatology (EARLINET). The objective of this research was to test the correctness of the algorithms and the influence of the lidar ratio used by the various lidar teams involved in the EARLINET for calculation of backscatter-coefficient profiles from the lidar signals. The exercise consisted of processing synthetic lidar signals of various degrees of difficulty. One of these profiles contained height-dependent lidar ratios to test the vertical influence of those profiles on the various retrieval algorithms. Furthermore, a realistic incomplete overlap of laser beam and receiver field of view was introduced to remind the teams to take great care in the nearest range to the lidar. The intercomparison was performed in three stages with increasing knowledge on the input parameters. First, only the lidar signals were distributed; this is the most realistic stage. Afterward the lidar ratio profiles and the reference values at calibration height were provided. The unknown height-dependent lidar ratio had the largest influence on the retrieval, whereas the unknown reference value was of minor importance. These results show the necessity of making additional independent measurements, which can provide us with a suitable approximation of the lidar ratio. The final stage proves in general, that the data evaluation schemes of the different groups of lidar systems work well.     

Statistical-uncertainty-based adaptive filtering of lidar signals

An adaptive filter signal processing technique is developed to overcome the problem of Raman lidar water-vapor mixing ratio (the ratio of the water-vapor density to the dry-air density) with a highly variable statistical uncertainty that increases with decreasing photomultiplier-tube signal strength and masks the true desired water-vapor structure. The technique, applied to horizontal scans, assumes only statistical horizontal homogeneity. The result is a variable spatial resolution water-vapor signal with a constant variance out to a range limit set by a specified signal-to-noise ratio. The technique was applied to Raman water-vapor lidar data obtained at a coastal pier site together with in situ instruments located 320 m from the lidar. The micrometeorological humidity data were used to calibrate the ratio of the lidar gains of the H(2)O and the N(2) photomultiplier tubes and set the water-vapor mixing ratio variance for the adaptive filter. For the coastal experiment the effective limit of the lidar range was found to be approximately 200 m for a maximum noise-to-signal variance ratio of 0.1 with the implemented data-reduction procedure. The technique can be adapted to off-horizontal scans with a small reduction in the constraints and is also applicable to other remote-sensing devices that exhibit the same inherent range-dependent signal-to-noise ratio problem.     

Mesopause-region temperature and wind measurements with pseudorandom modulation continuous-wave (PMCW) lidar at 589 nm

A study on the feasibility of using pseudorandom modulation continuous-wave (PMCW) Na lidar for mesopause-region temperature and horizontal wind measurements is presented with a number of specific geometries and associated beam-telescope overlap functions, suitable for ground-based and airborne deployments. The performance of these deployment scenarios is analyzed by scaling from the received signal and sky background and the measurement uncertainties in temperature and horizontal wind of the well-tested Colorado State University pulsed Na lidar. Using currently available high-power (~20 W) continuous-wave Na narrowband lasers, a compact PMCW bistatic Na lidar system can indeed be deployed to simultaneously measure mesopause-region temperature and horizontal winds on a 24 h continuous basis, weather permitting.     

Monitoring O3 with solar-blind Raman lidars

The benefits of retrieving ozone concentration profiles by a use of a single Raman signal rather than the Raman differential absorption lidar (DIAL) technique are investigated by numerical simulations applied either to KrF- (248 nm) or to quadrupled Nd:YAG- (266 nm) based Raman lidars, which are used for both daytime and nighttime monitoring of the tropospheric water-vapor mixing ratio. It is demonstrated that ozone concentration profiles of adequate accuracy and spatial and temporal resolution can be retrieved under low aerosol loading by a single Raman lidar because of the large value of the ozone absorption cross section both at 248 nm and at 266 nm. Then experimental measurements of Raman signals provided by the KrF-based lidar operating at the University of Lecce (40 degrees 20'N, 18 degrees 6'E) are used to retrieve ozone concentration profiles by use of the Raman DIAL technique and the nitrogen Raman signal.     

Comparison of various linear depolarization parameters measured by lidar

Different definitions for estimating the degree of changes in signal polarization measured by lidar measurements are used both to detect the presence of nonspherical aerosol particles and to estimate their shape and density. Our aim is to provide a tool for calculation and interpretation of changes in polarization that are due to aerosol backscatter measured by the lidar technique. An overview of several techniques used to calculate linear depolarization from two-channel lidar measurements is given. Advantages and disadvantages of each method are analyzed when we apply them on a lidar vertical profile. Systematic errors are also discussed. First, an overview of different estimations of polarizability of atmospheric molecules is given. The presence of signal with orthogonal polarization in each channel (cross talk) is a source of error in depolarization estimation. It is calculated at various degrees of contamination, and the total uncertainty on depolarization definition is retrieved.     

Determination of overlap in lidar systems

The overlap profile, also known as crossover function or geometric form factor, is often a source of uncertainty for lidar measurements. This paper describes a method for measuring the overlap by presenting the lidar with a virtual cloud through the use of an imaging system. Results show good agreement with horizontal hard target lidar measurements and with geometric overlap calculated for the ideal aberration-free case.     

Analysis of the receiver response in lidar measurements

We report on the calculation of the effective telescope area in lidar applications by a ray-tracing approach. This method allows one to consider the true experimental working conditions and hence to obtain accurate values of the effective telescope area as a function of the height. This in turn allows the retrieval of the signal from the ranges where the overlap function is not constant (e.g., lower ranges), thus increasing the useful range interval. Moreover, we show that the spherical mirrors are more appropriate than the parabolic ones for most of the lidar measurements, although a particular alignment procedure, such as the one we describe, must be used.     

Combined Raman lidar for the measurement of atmospheric temperature,water vapor,particle extinction coefficient,and particle backscatter coefficient

The lidar of the Radio Science Center for Space and Atmosphere (RASC; Kyoto, Japan) make use of two pure rotational Raman (MR) signals for both the measurement of the atmospheric temperature profile and the derivation of a temperature-independent Raman reference signal. The latter technique is new and leads to significant smaller measurement uncertainties compared with the commonly used vibrational Raman lidar technique. For the measurement of temperature, particle extinction coefficient, particle backscatter coefficient, and humidity simultaneously, only four lidar signal are needed the elastic Cabannes backscatter signal, two RR signals, and the vibrational Raman water vapor signal. The RASC lidar provides RR signals of unprecedented intensity. Although only 25% of the RR signal intensities can be used with the present data-acquisition electronics, the 1-s -statistical uncertainty of nighttime temperature measurements is lower than for previous systems and is < 1K up to 11-km height for, e.g., a resolution of 500 m and 9 min. In addition, RR measurements in daytime also have become feasible.     

Polarization-discrimination technique to maximize the lidar signal-to-noise ratio for daylight operations

The impact and potential of a polarization-selection technique to reduce the sky background signal for linearly polarized monostatic elastic backscatter lidar measurements are examined. Taking advantage of naturally occurring polarization properties in scattered skylight, we devised a polarization-discrimination technique in which both the lidar transmitter and the receiver track and minimize detected sky background noise while maintaining maximum lidar signal throughput. Lidar elastic backscatter measurements, carried out continuously during daylight hours at 532 nm, show as much as a factor of square root 10 improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over conventional unpolarized schemes. For vertically pointing lidars, the largest improvements are limited to the early morning and late afternoon hours, while for lidars scanning azimuthally and in elevation at angles other than vertical, significant improvements are achievable over more extended time periods with the specific times and improvement factors depending on the specific angle between the lidar and the solar axes. The resulting diurnal variations in SNR improvement sometimes show an asymmetry with the solar angle that analysis indicates can be attributed to changes in observed relative humidity that modifies the underlying aerosol microphysics and observed optical depth.     

Ultraviolet high-spectral-resolution Doppler lidar for measuring wind field and aerosol optical properties

An ultraviolet incoherent Doppler lidar that incorporates the high-spectral-resolution (HSR) technique has been developed for measuring the wind field and aerosol optical properties in the troposphere. An injection seeded and tripled Nd:YAG laser at an ultraviolet wavelength of 355 nm was used in the lidar system. The HRS technique can resolve the aerosol Mie backscatter and the molecular Rayleigh backscatter to derive the signal components. By detecting the Mie backscatter, a great increase in the Doppler filter sensitivity was realized compared to the conventional incoherent Doppler lidars that detected the Rayleigh backscatter. The wind velocity distribution in a two-dimensional cross section was measured. By using the HSR technique, multifunction and absolute value measurements were realized for aerosol extinction, and volume backscatter coefficients; the laser beam transmittance, the lidar ratio, and the backscatter ratio are derived from these measurements.     

Validation of the Raman lidar algorithm for quantifying aerosol extinction

To calculate aerosol extinction from Raman lidar data, it is necessary to evaluate the derivative of a molecular Raman signal with respect to range. The typical approach taken in the lidar community is to make an a priori assumption about the functional behavior of the data to calculate the derivative. It has previously been shown that the use of the chi-squared technique to determine the most likely functional behavior of the data prior to actually calculating the derivative eliminates the need for making a priori assumptions. Here that technique is validated through numerical simulation and by application to a significant body of Raman lidar measurements. In general, we show that the chi-squared approach for evaluating extinction yields lower extinction uncertainty than traditional techniques. We also use the technique to study the feasibility of developing a general characterization of the extinction uncertainty that could permit the uncertainty in Raman lidar aerosol extinction measurements to be estimated accurately without the need of the chi-squared technique.     

Direct multiangle solution for poorly stratified atmospheres

The direct multiangle solution is considered, which allows improving the scanning lidar-data-inversion accuracy when the requirement of the horizontally stratified atmosphere is poorly met. The signal measured at zenith or close to zenith is used as a core source for extracting optical characteristics of the atmospheric aerosol loading. The multiangle signals are used as auxiliary data to extract the vertical transmittance profile from the zenith signal. Details of the retrieval methodology are considered that eliminate, or at least soften, some specific ambiguities in the multiangle measurements in horizontally heterogeneous atmospheres. Simulated and experimental elastic lidar data are presented that illustrate the essentials of the data-processing technique. Finally, the prospects of the utilization of high-spectral-resolution lidar in the multiangle mode are discussed.     

Coherent Doppler lidar signal covariance including wind shear and wind turbulence

The performance of a coherent Doppler lidar is determined by the statistics of the coherent Doppler signal. The derivation and calculation of the covariance of the Doppler lidar signal for random atmospheric wind fields and wind shear are presented. The signal parameters are defined for a general coherent Doppler lidar system in terms of the atmospheric parameters. There are two distinct physical regimes: one in which the transmitted pulse determines the signal statistics and the other in which the wind field and the atmospheric parameters dominate the signal statistics. When the wind fields dominate the signal statistics, Doppler lidar data are nonstationary and the signal correlation time is proportional to the operating wavelength of the lidar. The signal covariance is derived for signal-shot and multiple-shot conditions. For a single shot, the parameters of the signal covariance depend on the random, instantaneous atmospheric parameters. For multiple shots, various levels of ensemble averaging over the t emporal scales of the atmospheric processes are required. The wind turbulence is described by a Kolmogorov spectrum with an outer scale of turbulence. The effects of the wind turbulence are demonstrated with calculations for a horizontal propagation path in the atmospheric surface layer.     

Coherent Doppler lidar signal spectrum with wind turbulence

The average signal spectrum (periodogram) for coherent Doppler lidar is calculated for a turbulent wind field. Simple approximations are compared with the exact calculation. The effects of random errors in the zero velocity reference, the effects of averaging spectral estimates by use of multiple lidar pulses, and the effects of the range dependence of the lidar signal power over the range gate are included. For high spatial resolution measurements the lidar signal power is concentrated around one spectral estimate (spectral bin), and correct interpretation of the contribution from turbulence is difficult because of the effects of spectral leakage. For range gates that are larger than the lidar pulse volume, the signal power is contained in many spectral bins and the effects of turbulence can be determined accurately for constant signal power over the range gate and for the far-field range dependence of the signal power.     

Calibration method for multiangle lidar measurements

A new method based on a two-angle approach is developed to determine the lidar solution constant from scanning elastic lidar data, hence providing a relative calibration for each lidar scan. Once the solution constant is determined, the vertical profiles of atmospheric extinction can be calculated. With this calibration method a minimization technique is used that replaces the linear regression used in a known two-angle approach that requires only local atmospheric homogeneity over a restricted altitude calibration range rather than overall horizontal homogeneity. Lidar signals from at least one pair of elevation angles are used, averaged in time when the system is operated in a permanent two-angle mode, or an arbitrary number of signal pairs is used, when a two-dimensional lidar scan is being processed. The method is tested extensively with synthetic data. The calibration method is a robust tool for determining the solution constant to the lidar equation and for obtaining vertical profiles of atmospheric extinction.     

Identification and correction of analog-to-digital-converter nonlinearities and their implications for differential absorption lidar measurements

Differential absorption lidar (DIAL) is a powerful remote-sensing technique widely used to probe the spatial and temporal distribution of ozone and other gaseous atmospheric trace constituents. Although conceptually simple, the DIAL technique presents many challenging and often subtle technical difficulties that can limit its useful range and accuracy. One potentially serious source of error for many DIAL experiments is nonlinearity in the analog-to-digital converters used to capture lidar return signals. The impact of digitizer nonlinearity on DIAL measurements is examined, and a simple and inexpensive low-frequency dithering technique that significantly reduces the effects of ADC nonlinearity in DIAL and other applications in which the signal is repetitively averaged is described.     

Simplified calculations for accuracy of a lidar dial system to measure atmospheric H2O vapor and temperature

A simple method is given for computing the relative errors in H2O vapor and T (temperature) profiles measured by a ground-based differential lidar system: The analysis is based on a simplified model of the earth's atmosphere, which allows one to write exact mathematical expressions for the lidar return signals which can be evaluated in closed form. Error computations can be made from these expressions with a small pocket calculator to an accuracy of a few percent. Error estimates are given for a lidar system used to measure H2O and T profiles from the ground up to a 5-km altitude. The results are given for an ideal system with no instrument noise and for a system using quantum detectors with detector-amplifier noise and less than unity quantum efficiency. The relative merits of the photomultiplier tube and silicon diode as detectors are also assessed using this technique of error analysis. Regions of useful operation for these detectors are defined in terms of the signal energy of the lidar return and the noise equivalent power of the detector.