David García Vizcaíno

Lidar techniques for remote sensing of the atmosphere (Invited Paper)

Information about atmospheric variables, such as presence and characteristics of supended particulates (aerosols), concentration of chemical species, humidity, temperature, etc., can be obtained remotely in an energetic-efficient manner from radiation produced by optical sources and backscattered by the atmosphere, drawing on the relatively strong interaction between electromagnetic radiation at optical wavelengths and particulates and molecules in the atmosphere. Atmospheric probing systems based on laser sources can provide information as a function of range and, being their operating principle essentially the same as that of radar (except for the fact that in atmospheric probing the target is by definiti8on the atmosphere zone illuminated by the laser, instead of a hard target), they are usually called laser radars or lidars (from Light Detection And Ranging). In addition to their ability to perform remote measurements- a characteristic that they share with other systems-lidars feature the availability of quasi-real-time data, high spatial resolution and a relative convenience to perform three-dimensional scans of the atmospheric volume under study. Basic lidar principles and capabilities are discussed in this work.

Atmospheric aerosol measurement with a network of advanced lidar instruments

A European network of atmosphere sensors uses multi-wavelength elastic-Raman lidar instruments in its infrastructure.