On the use cirrus clouds for ground‐based elastic lidar calibration
- Navas-Guzmán, F.
- Guerrero-Rascado, J.L.
- Bravo-Aranda, J.A.
- Alados-Arboledas, L.
ISSN: 2171-8814
Year of publication: 2011
Issue Title: V Workshop LIDAR measur. in Latinamerica
Volume: 44
Issue: 1
Pages: 49-53
Type: Article
More publications in: Óptica pura y aplicada
Abstract
A key parameter to retrieve backscatter coefficient from elastic lidar signals is the backscatter coefficient at a reference height. Traditionally, such a calibration height must fulfil the criterion that at this altitude the particle backscatter coefficient is negligible compared to the molecular backscatter value. Such clean‐air conditions are normally given in the upper troposphere. This procedure cannot be applied for those channels that present low signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) at the reference height. To solve this problem an alternative calibration method using cirrus clouds is presented.