Airborne temperature profiling in the troposphere during daytime by lidar utilizing Rayleigh–Brillouin scattering
The airborne measurement of a temperature profile from 10.5 km down towards ground (about 1.4 km above sea level) during daytime by means of a lidar utilizing Rayleigh-Brillouin (RB) scattering is demonstrated for the first time, to our knowledge. The spectra of the scattered light were measured by...
| Published in: | Optics Letters |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Optical Society of America
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://elib.dlr.de/143672/ https://elib.dlr.de/143672/1/ol-46-17-4132.pdf |
| Summary: | The airborne measurement of a temperature profile from 10.5 km down towards ground (about 1.4 km above sea level) during daytime by means of a lidar utilizing Rayleigh-Brillouin (RB) scattering is demonstrated for the first time, to our knowledge. The spectra of the scattered light were measured by tuning the laser (Lambda=354.9 nm) over a 11 GHz frequency range with a step size of 250 MHz while using a Fabry Perot interferometer as a spectral filter. The measurement took 14 min and was conducted over a remote area in Iceland with the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator on-board the DLR Falcon aircraft. The temperature profile was derived by applying an analytical RB line shape model to the backscatter spectra, which were measured at different altitudes with a vertical resolution of 630 m. A comparison with temperature profiles from radiosonde observations and model temperatures shows reasonable agreement with biases of less than +/-2K. Based on Poisson statistics, the random error of the derived temperatures is estimated to vary between 0.1 K and 0.4 K. The work provides insight into the possible realization of airborne lidar temperature profilers based on RB scattering. |
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