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TMF Stratospheric Ozone Lidar (a.k.a. TMSOL)

General

This Differential Absorption ozone Lidar (DIAL) was the first instrument built by the JPL atmospheric lidar group. The instrument started routine data acquisition in early 1988 and has since acquired over 3000 stratospheric ozone and atmospheric temperature profiles. It has undergone two major upgrades in 1994 and 2001.

The current system combines Rayleigh/Mie and nitrogen vibrational Raman scattering techniques, and includes 8 receiving channels (4 channels operating at the ozone-absorbed wavelengths of 308 nm and 332 nm, and 4 channels at the non-absorbed wavelengths of 355 nm and 387 nm). The combination of its channels allows ozone retrievals between 12 km and 50 km altitude, temperature retrieval between 12 km and 90 km, and aerosol backscatter ratio between 12 km and 40 km.

Instrument/dataset characteristics:

  • Instrument vertical resolution: 300-m until 2018, 15-m since 2018
  • Nominal vertical range: ozone: 8-50 km; Temperature: 12-90 km; Aerosols: 10-40 km
  • Instrument temporal resolution: Anything from 5-min to 2-hours, depending on the application
  • Typical measurement frequency: 3-5 times per week, nighttime only
  • Occasional "all-night" measurements for case studies and campaigns
  • Typical total number of measurements per year: 200.

References

McDermid, S. M. Godin, and L. O. Lindquist, “Ground-based laser DIAL system for long-term measurements of stratospheric ozone,” Appl. Opt. 29, 3603–3612 (1990)

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