Low-altitude atmospheric wind measurement from the combined Mie and Rayleigh backscattering by Doppler lidar with an iodine filter.

Abstract

This paper briefly discusses the mobile ground-based incoherent Doppler wind lidar system, with iodine filters as receiving frequency discriminators, developed by the Ocean Remote Sensing Laboratory, Ocean University of Qingdao, China. The presented result of wind profiles in October and November 2000, retrieved from the combined Mie and Rayleigh backscattering, is the first report to our knowledge of wind measurements in the troposphere by such a system, where the required independent measurement of aerosol-scattering ratio can also be performed. A second iodine vapor filter was used to lock the laser to absolute frequency reference for both wind and aerosol-scattering ratio measurements. Intercomparison experiments of the lidar wind profile measurements were performed with pilot balloons. Results showed that the standard deviation of wind speed and wind direction, for the 2-4 km altitude range, were 0.985 m/s and 17.9 degrees, respectively.