Abstract
A high-power Raman lidar system has been installed at the high-altitude research station Schneefernerhaus (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany) at 2675 m a.s.l., at the side of the existing wide-range differrential-absorption lidar. An industrial XeCl laser was modified for polarized single-line operation at an average power of about 175 W. This high power and a 1.5-m-diameter receiver are expected to allow us to extend the operating range for water-vapour sounding to more than 25 km, at an accuracy level of the order of 10 %. In addition, temperature measurements in the free troposphere and to altitudes beyond 80 km are planned. The system is currently thoroughly tested and exhibits an excellent performance up to the lowermost stratosphere. We expect that results for higher altitudes can be presented at the meeting.
Highlights
The high spatial and temporal variability of water vapour in the climate-relevant upper troposphere (UT) and lower stratosphere (LS) (e.g., [1]), together with LS mixing ratios of the order of 5 ppm, impose tough boundary conditions for vertical sounding
The results show that, after reducing the background light by 2-3 decades, a substantial gain in the H2O operating range can be achieved
The outcome of this effort will be presented at the meeting
Summary
The high spatial and temporal variability of water vapour in the climate-relevant upper troposphere (UT) and lower stratosphere (LS) (e.g., [1]), together with LS mixing ratios of the order of 5 ppm, impose tough boundary conditions for vertical sounding. The new lidar system yields an ideal extension of the measurements with our differential-absorption lidar (DIAL) that provides accurate water-vapour profiles in most of the free troposphere [1,4,5,6,7]. Both systems are located in the same laboratory at the Schneefernerhaus highaltitude station (UFS) at an altitude of 2675 m. Stratospheric DIAL measurements are restricted to airborne systems (e.g., [8]) Despite their considerably lower sensitivity Raman lidar systems offer a higher potential for ground-based routine measurements of stratospheric water vapour since the tropospheric radiation losses are substantially less significant. The quality of the H2O data grows with the number of photons collected
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