Urban Aerosol Optical Properties Measurement by Elastic Counter-Look Lidar

Abstract

The new developed elastic lidar system utilizes two identical elastic lidars, in counter-look configuration, to measure aerosol backscattering and extinction coefficients without any hypotheses. Compared to elastic-Raman lidar and high spectral resolution lidar, the proposed counter-look elastic lidar can use low power eyesafe laser and all available wavelengths. With this prototype lidar system, urban aerosol optical properties and their spatial distribution have been directly measured, including backscatter coefficient, extinction coefficient and lidar ratio. The preliminary results show that the low cost and eye-safe counter-look configured elastic lidar system can be used to measure the aerosol optical properties distribution and give the hint of aerosol type.