Abstract

Over the past ten years, interest has grown in characterizing atmospheric aerosol backscatter levels in response to escalating interest in several proposed satellite-borne, lidar-based sensors. Measurements of some primary atmospheric parameter will be obtained from signals backscattered from micrometer-size aerosols. An example is the Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder (LAWS) under development by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) as part of the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) earth system science initiative (Curran, 1987). LAWS is intended to provide global tropospheric wind measurements using Doppler-shifted signals from aerosols, which act as passive wind tracers. The accuracy of the wind estimates is a function of the signal strength, which in turn is a function of the aerosol backscatter coefficient. Therefore, LAWS performance will depend in part on the spatial distribution of aerosols, and associated physical, chemical, and optical properties.

© 1991 Optical Society of America