Lidar Measurements of the Troposphere

This paper reports on an extended program of measurements of tropospheric properties using lidar remote sensing techniques. Two lidar systems have been employed. One is a dual frequency ruby lidar operating at low pulse repetition frequency (~0.2 Hz) and high energy output (~ 3 J @ 694 nm and ~450 mJ @ 347 nm) and the other is a Xe Cl excimer lidar operating at a single ultraviolet wavelength (308 nm) with prfs of up to 50 Hz at energy levels of the order of 50 mJ. Both systems are equipped with high speed digitizers (100 MHz) and are coupled to IBM PC's for data capture and analysis. The excimer lidar data system also includes a high speed signal averaging system. The ruby system has a multichannel receiver so that several return signals (at different wavelengths or polarizations) can be recorded simultaneously but the Xe Cl lidar has only a single receiving channel.