Approach for selecting boundary value to retrieve Mie-scattering lidar data based on segmentation and two-component fitting methods.

Abstract

Fernald method is regarded as the standard method for retrieving lidar data, but the retrieval can be performed only when a boundary value is given. Generally, we can select clear atmosphere above the tropopause as a reference to determine the boundary value, but we need to use the slope method to fit the boundary value when the detecting range is lower than the tropopause. The slope method involves significant uncertainty because this algorithm is based on two hypotheses: one is that aerosol vertical distribution is homogeneous, and the other is that either molecule or aerosol components exist in the atmosphere. To reduce the uncertainty, we proposed a new approach, which segments a signal into "uniform" sub-signals to avoid the first hypothesis, and then uses nonlinear two-component fitting to avoid the second one. Compared with the approach based on the slope method, the new approach obtained more accurate boundary values and retrieving results for both of the simulated and real signals. Thus the automatic segmentation algorithm and the two-component fitting method are useful for determining the reference bin and boundary values when the effective detecting range of lidar is lower than the tropopause.