Open AccessGround-based mobile scanning LIDAR for remote sensing of contrails
Author(s) -
Volker Freudenthaler,
F. Homburg,
H. Jäger
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
annales geophysicae
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.522
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1432-0576
pISSN - 0992-7689
DOI - 10.1007/s00585-994-0956-9
Subject(s) - lidar , cirrus , ice crystals , environmental science , troposphere , stratosphere , remote sensing , water vapor , radiance , trace gas , meteorology , radiative transfer , atmospheric sciences , materials science , optics , geology , physics
Air traffic is a source of trace gases in theupper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Contrails readily form from watervapor exhausts under favorable meteorological conditions. Since contrails areice crystal clouds like natural cirrus clouds, they bear a greenhouse potentialwhich has to be investigated. The IFU has built a scanning lidar systememploying a pulsed Nd:YAG laser as the emitter and a 52-cm diameter telescope asthe receiver. Signals are processed in several channels to investigatedepolarization and wavelength dependencies of the light backscattered from icecrystals. These investigations are aimed at the formation and life cycles ofcontrails, their optical properties, and their climatological consequences inareas of dense air traffic. The experimental lidar setup is described and asample measurement is shown