Vol. 25, issue 01, article # 14

Abstract:

In the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) has been designed and built coaxial Arctic High Spectral Resolution Lidar with beam expansion via receiving telescope. This allowed one to have stable and eye-safe device. Lidar was developed for the unattendant, long-term, and absolutely calibrated measurements of the aerosol backscatter coefficient, optical depth, and depolarization coefficient at heights from 75 m to 30 km. Original method of the laser frequency stabilization of the Nd:YAG laser is implemented based on the stimulated scattering of Brillouin effect. System is running at the 532 nm wavelength and using iodine (line 1109) cavity as a blocking filter in molecular channel. Fabri-Peroit etalon in the receiver allowed one to reduce bandwidth up to 6 GHz, effectively cut down background and work at daytime. Since 2005 lidar has been running autonomously during 5 years at the Eureka Weather Station (80N, 86W), Ellsemere island in Canada. Data transfer and control were done through the internet. All lidar data are available on the site http://lidar.ssec.wisc.edu.

Keywords:

high spectral resolution lidar, molecular scattering, atmospheric aerosol