Infrared lidar overlap function: an experimental determination.

The most recent works demonstrate that the lidar overlap function, which describes the overlap between the laser beam and the receiver field of view, can be determined experimentally for the 355 and 532 nm channels using Raman signals. Nevertheless, the Raman channels cannot be used to determine the lidar overlap for the infrared channel (1064 nm) because of their low intensity. In addition, many Raman lidar systems only provide inelastic signals with reasonable signal-to-noise ratio at nighttime. In view of this fact, this work presents a modification of that method, based on the comparison of attenuated backscatter profiles derived from lidar and ceilometer, to retrieve the overlap function for the lidar infrared channel. Similarly to the Raman overlap method, the approach presented here allows to derive the overlap correction without an explicit knowledge of all system parameters. The application of the proposed methodology will improve the potential of Raman lidars to investigate the aerosol microphysical properties in the planetary boundary layer, extending the information of 1064 nm backscatter profiles to the ground and allowing the retrieval of microphysical properties practically close to the surface.