Abstract

A new iterative algorithm is developed to estimate LIDAR ratio for a thin cirrus cloud over an aerosol layer. First, the thin cirrus cloud is screened out and replaced by a modeled LIDAR signal and the extinction coefficients of the aerosol layer are derived using the Fernald backward method. These aerosol coefficients are referred as the "actual values". Second, the original LIDAR signal which includes the thin cirrus cloud is also inverted by the Fernald backward method down to the aerosol layer but using different LIDAR ratio for the thin cirrus cloud. Depending on the different assumptions about the LIDAR ratio of the thin cirrus cloud, different sets of aerosol extinction can be derived. The "actual values" which are found in the first step can be used to constrain this iterative progress and the correct LIDAR ratio of the thin cirrus cloud can be found. The detailed description of this method and retrieval examples are given in the paper. The cases compared with other methods are presented and the statistical result is also shown and agrees well with other studies.

© 2011 Optical Society of Korea

Iterative method to determine an averaged backscatter-to-extinction ratio in cirrus clouds

Salem Elouragini and Pierre H. Flamant
Appl. Opt. 35(9) 1512-1518 (1996)

Optical properties of aerosol and cloud particles measured by a single-line-extracted pure rotational Raman lidar

Liang Peng, Fan Yi, Fuchao Liu, Zhenping Yin, and Yun He
Opt. Express 29(14) 21947-21964 (2021)

Calibration of the 1064 nm lidar channel using water phase and cirrus clouds

Yonghua Wu, Chuen Meei Gan, Lina Cordero, Barry Gross, Fred Moshary, and Sam Ahmed
Appl. Opt. 50(21) 3987-3999 (2011)

Lidar ratio and depolarization ratio for cirrus clouds

Wei-Nai Chen, Chih-Wei Chiang, and Jan-Bai Nee
Appl. Opt. 41(30) 6470-6476 (2002)

Transmittance ratio constrained retrieval technique for lidar cirrus measurements

Jia Su, M. Patrick McCormick, Zhaoyan Liu, Robert B. Lee, Kevin R. Leavor, and Liqiao Lei
Opt. Lett. 37(9) 1595-1597 (2012)