Annales Geophysicae
www.ann-geophys.net
0992-7689
1432-0576
25
1
2007
10.5194/angeo-25-19-2007
http://www.ann-geophys.net/25/19/2007/
http://www.ann-geophys.net/25/19/2007/angeo-25-19-2007.html
http://www.ann-geophys.net/25/19/2007/angeo-25-19-2007.pdf
19
25
2007-02-01
Upper altitude limit for Rayleigh lidar
P. S. Argall
pargall@uwo.ca
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
It has long been assumed that Rayleigh lidar can be used to measure
atmospheric temperature profiles up to about 90 or 100 km and that above
this region the technique becomes invalid due to changes in atmospheric
composition which affect basic assumptions on which Rayleigh lidar is based.
Modern powerful Rayleigh lidars are able to measure backscatter from well
above 100 km requiring a closer examination of the effects of the changing
atmospheric composition on derived Rayleigh lidar temperature profiles.
<br><br>
The NRLMSISE-00 model has been used to simulate lidar signal (photon-count)
profiles, taking into account the effects of changing atmospheric
composition, enabling a quantitative analysis of the biases and errors
associated with extending Rayleigh lidar temperature measurements above 100 km.
The biases associated with applying a nominal correction for the change
in atmospheric composition with altitude has also been investigated.
<br><br>
The simulations reported here show that in practice the upper altitude limit
for Rayleigh lidar is imposed more by the accuracy of the temperature or
pressure used to seed the temperature retrieval algorithm than by accurate
knowledge of the atmospheric composition as has long been assumed.
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