Active probing of cloud multiple scattering, optical depth, vertical thickness, and liquid water content using wide-angle imaging lidar

Steven P. Love; Anthony B. Davis; Charles A. Rohde; Larry Tellier; Cheng Ho

doi:10.1117/12.482312

5 September 2002 Active probing of cloud multiple scattering, optical depth, vertical thickness, and liquid water content using wide-angle imaging lidar

Steven P. Love, Anthony B. Davis, Charles A. Rohde, Larry Tellier, Cheng Ho

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4815, Atmospheric Radiation Measurements and Applications in Climate; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.482312
Event: International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology, 2002, Seattle, WA, United States

Abstract

At most optical wavelengths, laser light in a cloud lidar experiment is not absorbed but merely scattered out of the beam, eventually escaping the cloud via multiple scattering. There is much information available in this light scattered far from the input beam, information ignored by traditional 'on-beam' lidar. Monitoring these off-beam returns in a fully space- and time-resolved manner is the essence of our unique instrument, Wide Angle Imaging Lidar (WAIL). In effect, WAIL produces wide-field (60-degree full-angle) 'movies' of the scattering process and records the cloud's radiative Green functions. A direct data product of WAIL is the distribution of photon path lengths resulting from multiple scattering in the cloud. Following insights from diffusion theory, we can use the measured Green functions to infer the physical thickness and optical depth of the cloud layer, and, from there, estimate the volume-averaged liquid water content. WAIL is notable in that it is applicable to optically thick clouds, a regime in which traditional lidar is reduced to ceilometry. Here we present recent WAIL data on various clouds and discuss the extension of WAIL to full diurnal monitoring by means of an ultra-narrow magneto-optic atomic line filter for daytime measurements.

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Steven P. Love, Anthony B. Davis, Charles A. Rohde, Larry Tellier, and Cheng Ho "Active probing of cloud multiple scattering, optical depth, vertical thickness, and liquid water content using wide-angle imaging lidar", Proc. SPIE 4815, Atmospheric Radiation Measurements and Applications in Climate, (5 September 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.482312

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