Advanced Mobile Doppler Lidar for Global Study of Middle and Upper Atmosphere

1. Advanced Mobile Doppler Lidarfor Global Study of Middle and Upper Atmosphere Xinzhao Chu, Jeffrey Thayer, Jonathan Friedman Consortium of Resonance and Rayleigh Lidars (CRRL) Measurements of the middle and upper atmosphere present great challenges to lidar technology, while offering tremendous promise for producing significant new science. The acquisition of global wind and temperature data in the middle and upper atmosphere demands high-precision and high-resolution Doppler lidar with great mobility. This is beyond the capability of any existing lidar system. An advanced, mobile, Fe-resonance/Rayleigh/Mie Doppler lidar is proposed to address these challenges. It will integrate for the first time in a single system key breakthroughs in lidar technology. This lidar will vertically profile temperatures, winds, meteoric iron densities, clouds and aerosols throughout the stratosphere, mesosphere and lower thermosphere with extensive geographic coverage. The mobility of the proposed lidar opens entire new vistas in middle atmosphere research. The lidar will be deployed aboard HIAPER, or containerized to move with a trailer or ship to field locations of interest. It will go where no other ground-based instrument can, and in these locations make high-resolution measurements of critical atmospheric parameters.

2. Concept of Mobile Fe/Rayleigh/Mie Doppler Lidar Key breakthroughs in lidar technology: injection-seeded, frequency-doubled, Alexandrite ring-laser, holographic scanner, double-etalon, and diagnostics Advantages: large temperature coverage from 30-115 km, high wind sensitivity, sensitive detection of polar mesospheric and stratospheric clouds, meteoric iron heterogeneous chemistry, and matured laser and scanner technologies

3. Multiple Platforms for Mobile Deployment Airborne HIAPER Shipborne Containerized

4. Science Pay-off and Technology Spin-off The development of the proposed lidar is critical to many research programs in the middle and upper atmospheric science community. It will enable new and unprecedented observations, and generate important and wholly new knowledge about Earth’s atmosphere and climate system. Its measurements of gravity waves, focusing on key regions and mechanisms for their generation, will lead to a better understanding of their dynamics, providing atmospheric and climate modelers with the means to improve gravity-wave parameterizations vital to the accuracy and utility of their models. Observations of the mean thermal and dynamic state and clouds and aerosols in the middle atmosphere, made with unprecedented resolution and accuracy in previously inaccessible regions, will drive improvements in middle-atmosphere models, and, thereby, in global climate models. The lidar will advance knowledge of coupling among atmospheric layers by making measurements relevant to the lower and middle atmosphere, and to the neutral atmosphere and the ionosphere. The lidar development will promote advances in laser and optical technology. The alexandrite ring laser and the holographic scanner are novel techniques needed for modern high-resolution spectroscopy and communications, as well as for environmental remote sensing.