Abstract

Besides the potentiality of the DIAL method at 0.72 μm to monitor tropospheric water vapor up to 7-9 km(¹), one of the most attractive features of this method is the simultaneous measurement of water vapor and particle content with high time and vertical resolutions. The correlation between water vapor and particle behaviours leads to studies of pertubative effects of cloud formation or determination of mass transfer coefficient in the mixing layer (²). Unfortunately in this altitude region, the absolute humidity as well as the particle content vary rapidly from one site to another. It is therefore necessary to adapt the choice of the absorption transition to the actual humidity and to account for the specific particle distribution.