Accuracy Remote-Sensing of Aerosol Spatial Distribution in the Lower Troposphere by Twin Scanning Lidars

Abstract:

Aerosols in the lower troposphere play an important role in the absorption and scattering of atmospheric radiation, the forming of precipitation and the circulation of chemistry. Due to the influence of solar heating at the surface, the aerosol distribution is inhomogeneous and variation with time. Lidar is proven to be a powerful tool in the application of remote sensing of atmospheric properties (Klett 1981). However, the existing of overlap function in lidar equation limits the fine detection of aerosol optical properties in the lower troposphere by vertical measurement, either by Raman lidar (Whiteman 2003) or by high spectral resolution lidar (Imaki 2005). Although the multi-angle method can succeed the aerosol measurement from the ground, the homogeneous atmospheric is needed (Pahlow 2004). Aiming to detect the inhomogeneous aerosols in the lower troposphere and to retrieve the aerosol extinction and backscatter coefficients in the lidar equation, a novel method for accuracy remote-sensing of aerosol properties based on twin scanning lidars has been proposed. In order to realize the fine detection of the aerosol spatial distribution from the ground to the height of interest of atmosphere, the scanning lidar is utilized as the remote sensing tool combined with the cross scanning by the twin systems, which makes the exact solutions of those two unknown parameters retrievable. Figure shows the detection method for aerosol spatial distribution using twin scanning lidars. As two lidar equations are provided simultaneously, the aerosol extinction and backscatter coefficients are retrievable. Moreover, by selecting the transmitting laser wavelength, the presented method can realize the fine detection of aerosol at any spectrum, even the theoretical and technical analysis of the aerosol characteristics by applying multi-spectra.