Continuous profiling of water vapor, temperature and backscatter coefficients via simultaneous estimation of and denoising applied to a diode-laser-based lidar

The MicroPulse Differential Absorption Lidar (MPD) operates at two near-infrared wavelengths and employs three detectors to create a low-power (Class 1M) quantitative thermodynamic profiling system. By integrating water vapor DIAL, High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL), and oxygen DIAL technologies, the MPD can retrieve temperature, absolute humidity, and aerosol backscatter coefficient independently, without relying on external data, calibrations, or atmospheric assumptions. Although the system architecture captures sufficient information for standalone data products, the challenge lies in accurately retrieving these thermodynamic quantities while accounting for cross-dependencies among observations and effectively suppressing noise. To address this, we developed a method utilizing total variation regularization, forward modeling, and improved detector noise models. This approach enables continuous, high-resolution (5-minute intervals) observation of thermodynamic parameters in the lower troposphere (400 meters to 6 kilometers) using this low-power, diode-laser-based system.