Comparison of lidar and transmissometer measurements through clouds

Luc R. Bissonnette; Gerard J. Kunz; Karin Weiss-Wrana

doi:10.1117/12.254163

14 October 1996 Comparison of lidar and transmissometer measurements through clouds

Luc R. Bissonnette, Gerard J. Kunz, Karin Weiss-Wrana

Proceedings Volume 2828, Image Propagation through the Atmosphere; (1996) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.254163
Event: SPIE's 1996 International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1996, Denver, CO, United States

Abstract

A lidar-transmissometer intercomparison was made during an international experiment held in the German Alps to characterize the vertical structure of aerosols and clouds. The transmission path was 2325-m long and inclined at 30 degrees along the slope of a steep mountain ridge. the transmissometer consisted of a Nd:YAG and a CO₂ laser located in the valley and a large-mirror receiver that captured the full beams on the mountain top. Two lidars, one at 1.06 micrometer and one at 1.054 micrometer, were operated with their axes approximately parallel to the transmissometer axis but separated by a horizontal distance on the order of 20 - 40 m. The first one was operated in retroreflector mode and the relative transmittance was determined from the reflection off the mountain ridge above the cloud layer. The second one had a special receiver designed to make simultaneous recordings at four fields of view. The range-resolved scattering coefficient and effective cloud droplet radius are calculated from these four-field-of-view measurements by solving a simplified model (Appl. Opt. 34, 6959-6975, 1995) of the multiply scattered returns. The two simultaneous solutions for the scattering coefficient and effective droplet size make possible extrapolation at wavelengths other than the lidar wavelength of 1.054 micrometer. The main measurement event analyzed in this paper lasted 1.5 hours and produced transmittances ranging from less than 5% to more then 90%. The comparisons show good correlation between the transmissometer data and all lidar solutions including extrapolation at 10.59 micrometer.

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Luc R. Bissonnette, Gerard J. Kunz, and Karin Weiss-Wrana "Comparison of lidar and transmissometer measurements through clouds", Proc. SPIE 2828, Image Propagation through the Atmosphere, (14 October 1996); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.254163

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KEYWORDS

LIDAR

Clouds

Transmittance

Receivers

Aerosols

Scattering

Sensors

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