Open AccessLidar remote sensing of laser-induced incandescence on light absorbing particles in the atmosphere
Author(s) -
Alain Miffre,
Christophe Anselmo,
Sylvain Geffroy,
Emeric Fréjafon,
P. Rairoux
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.23.002347
Subject(s) - lidar , remote sensing , radiative transfer , atmospheric optics , atmosphere (unit) , aerosol , environmental science , optics , laser , incandescence , radiation , mie scattering , physics , meteorology , light scattering , scattering , geology , combustion , soot , chemistry , organic chemistry
Carbon aerosol is now recognized as a major uncertainty on climate change and public health, and specific instruments are required to address the time and space evolution of this aerosol, which efficiently absorbs light. In this paper, we report an experiment, based on coupling lidar remote sensing with Laser-Induced-Incandescence (LII), which allows, in agreement with Planck's law, to retrieve the vertical profile of very low thermal radiation emitted by light-absorbing particles in an urban atmosphere over several hundred meters altitude. Accordingly, we set the LII-lidar formalism and equation and addressed the main features of LII-lidar in the atmosphere by numerically simulating the LII-lidar signal. We believe atmospheric LII-lidar to be a promising tool for radiative transfer, especially when combined with elastic backscattering lidar, as it may then allow a remote partitioning between strong/less light absorbing carbon aerosols.