Rotational Raman lidar for obtaining aerosol scattering coefficients.

Two-channel lidar signals that are composed of total rotational scattering and elastic signals provide good information about aerosol scattering coefficients. We can calculate the aerosol backscattering coefficient and extinction coefficient directly, without making any assumption or calibration. Generally, a high-spectral-resolution lidar is used for aerosol monitoring, but we have designed a new low-spectral-resolution lidar system that contains both kinds of scattering information simultaneously, and we have retrieved the aerosol scattering coefficient. The results show that there is no need to assume any relation between aerosol backscattering and extinction or to consider any wavelength calibration to determine the aerosol scattering coefficient.