Vol. 18, issue 10, article # 10

Abstract:

Reduction of systematic lidar measurement errors due to differential attenuation and backscattering by aerosol and cloud particles is a key problem in determination of atmospheric ozone concentration. In the framework of the method of statistical tests, a comparative analysis of the efficiency of different algorithms of the differential absorption lidar (DIAL) technique for cases of elastic and inelastic scattering has been performed. The algorithms include the canonical DIAL technique, in which the ozone concentration profile is calculated using ratio of two signals measured at on- and off-line wavelengths within an absorption band. We consider specific features of the classical Raman method and of a new rotational-vibrational method. It is shown that the wavelength-dependent multiple scattering and the differential absorption by cloud particles are the principal sources of systematic errors in the ozone measurements, which dictates the necessity of their correction.