Recent Profiles of Atmospheric Backscatter

Abstract

The prevalence of atmospheric aerosols on a global basis has recently become a topic of great importance for climatologists and for researchers attempting to establish the feasibility of satellite-based measuring systems that use aerosols as tracers, as well as for those attempting to explain the interfering effects of aerosols on their measurements. In 1981 we began acquiring a large set of backscatter profiles with our 10.6 μm wavelength pulsed, coherent lidar near Boulder, Colorado. By 1984 more than 600 profiles were archived and analyzed, and several papers1-2 summarized the findings. Between 1985 and 1988 a void occurred in our data taking because we upgraded the transceiver from a lower powered hybrid design3 to a higher powered injection-seeded design4, and because of a change in our program objectives. Fortunately during this period the Jet Propulsion Laboratory began taking similar data5. In 1987 we renewed our systematic observations at the behest of NASA for its Laser Atmospheric Wind System (LAWS) studies6, and in the fall of 1988 we traveled to the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii to study the clean Pacific troposphere, in conjunction with the Global Backscatter Experiment (GLOBE7) program. Concurrently, our group operated a pulsed ruby lidar8 to acquire biweekly profiles of backscatter in the troposphere and stratosphere over Boulder. Recently we coordinated data taking between the two lidar systems, and we combined our observations on one occasion with observations from the University of Wyoming’s balloon backscatter instrument9.