Raman Lidar for Meteorological Observations, RALMO: Part 1 Instrument description

T. Dinoev, V. B. Simeonov, Y. Arshinov, S. Bobrovnikov, Pablo Ristori, B. Calpini, M. Parlange, Hubert van den Bergh

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59 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A new Raman lidar for unattended, round-the-clock measurement of vertical water vapor profiles for operational use by the MeteoSwiss has been developed during the past years by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne. The lidar uses narrow field-of-view, narrow-band configuration, a UV laser, and four 30 cm in diameter mirrors, fiber-coupled to a grating polychromator. The optical design allows water vapor retrieval from the incomplete overlap region without instrument-specific range-dependent corrections. The daytime vertical range covers the mid-troposphere, whereas the nighttime range extends to the tropopause. The near range coverage is extended down to 100 m AGL by the use of an additional fiber in one of the telescopes. This paper describes the system layout and technical realization. Day- and nighttime lidar profiles compared to Vaisala RS92 and Snow White® profiles and a six-day continuous observation are presented as an illustration of the lidar measurement capability.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1329-1346
Number of pages18
JournalAtmospheric Measurement Techniques
Volume6
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes

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