Determining Rayleigh Scatter Lidar Temperatures Using an Optimal Estimation Method

25 Mar 2015

Middle atmosphere temperature profile retrieved using an OEM (red curve) compared to the traditional analysis using 2 detector channels (blue and green curves).

• A lay summary of the paper is available at the Optical Society of America’s Spotlight on Optics.

We have recently published a paper in Applied Optics detailing a new method for retrieving temperature from Rayleigh lidar measurements using an optimal estimation method (OEM). The OEM allows a full systematic and random uncertainty budget to be done for each retrieval, specifies the height to which the retrieval is insensitive to the a priori temperature profile and gives the vertical resolution of the retrieval as a function of height. The ability to determine the full uncertainty budget is particularly important for using the Rayleigh-lidar temperature measurements for determining long-term changes, particularly for multi-instrument networks like NDACC or GRUAN. The method uses a free community-supported OEM solver developed by P. Eriksson and colleagues (qpack, part of the ARTS retrieval software package). 

We encourage you to try this method, and we are available to help answer your questions as you implement it. 

Bob and Alexander 

• Get the paper at Applied Optics: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-54-8-1872&origin=search 
• The paper is Open Access, if you can't retrieve it at the above link try: http://drp.rjsi.ca/1lkj0/G6dBktZZ