Abstract

During the summer of 1981, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory in Las Vegas participated with its two-frequency airborne downward-looking lidar in the South Coast Air Basin/Southeast Desert Oxidant Transport Study. The study was a cooperative program organized by the State of California's Air Resources Board; it was primarily concerned with quantifying the transport of oxidants and their precursors from the South Coast Air Basin into the adjacent high desert and low desert areas. Investigators from several Federal and State agencies, local air pollution control agencies, universities, and private contractors were involved in the field program. In this paper, the airborne lidar system is described, and the lidar data are presented and discussed in terms of the overall objectives of the study.