Recent Developments and Field Tests of the NASA Langley Research Center Airborne Water Vapor DIAL System

An airborne differential absorption lidar (DIAL) system has been developed at the NASA Langley Research Center for the remote measurement of water vapor (H2O) and aerosols in the lower troposphere. Significant modifications to the laser transmitters and other major subsystems have been implemented during the past two years to improve the system's performance and field reliability. The previous configuration of the airborne H2O DIAL system and the associated atmospheric data collected during flight tests at Wallops Flight Facility are described in detail in two recently published papers (Higdon et al., 1994 and Ponsardin et al., 1994). The modified system is to be flight tested in late 1994, and the system performance characteristics and preliminary atmospheric H2O and aerosol data from these flights are discussed in this paper.