New broadband lidar for greenhouse carbon dioxide gas sensing in the Earth's atmosphere

We present airborne measurements of a novel eye-safe spectrally broadband LIDAR capable of dealing with the atmospherically-induced variations in CO2 absorption using a Fabry-Perot based detector. The Fabry-Perot solid etalon in the receiver part is tuned to match the wavelength of several CO2 absorption lines simultaneously. The broadband technique tremendously reduces the requirement for source wavelength stability, instead putting this responsibility on the Fabry- Perot based receiver. The instrument technology we are developing has a clear pathway to space and realistic potential to become a robust, low risk space measurement system.