Open AccessAirborne temperature profiling in the troposphere during daytime by lidar utilizing Rayleigh–Brillouin scattering
Author(s) -
Benjamin Witschas,
Christian Lemmerz,
Oliver Lux,
Uwe Marksteiner,
Oliver Reitebuch,
Andreas Schäfler
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
optics letters/optics index
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.524
H-Index - 272
eISSN - 1071-2763
pISSN - 0146-9592
DOI - 10.1364/ol.431350
Subject(s) - rayleigh scattering , lidar , geology , physics , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , optics , remote sensing , chemistry , chromatography
The airborne measurement of a temperature profile from 10.5 km down towards ground (≈1.4 k m 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 ( λ =354.9 n m ) 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 ±2 K . 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.