Airborne temperature profiling in the troposphere during daytime by lidar utilizing Rayleigh–Brillouin scattering
Abstract
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.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Aug 19, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1364/ol.431350
Entities
People
- Andreas Schäfler
- Benjamin Witschas
- Christian Lemmerz
- Oliver Lux
- Oliver Reitebuch
- Uwe Marksteiner
Organizations
- European Space Agency
- German Aerospace Center
- Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre
- United States Naval Research Laboratory