Multi-function Airborne Raman Lidar (MARLi): Design and Initial Testing Results

Multi-function Airborne Raman Lidar (MARLi) was recently developed to provide simultaneous measurements of water vapor, temperature, aerosol, and cloud with fine spatial resolutions.  MARLi has a 16-inch telescope with a high power YAG laser capable transmitting 355 and/or 266 nm light.   MARLi has total 13 detecting channels to cover 266 and 355 nm elastic signals, water vapor and nitrogen vibrational Raman signals, 355 nm pure rotational Raman signals. The laser, telescope, and receiving optical system are integrated together with a high rigidity and low-mass optical table to ensure low gravity center and high stability for airborne operation.   To provide high spatial resolution measurements, MARLi only use strong signals sampled by A/D cards at 250 MHz.  Temporally MARLi can record data at 30 profiles per second, which corresponding to about a 3 m horizontal resolution on University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) at a cruising speed of 90m/s.  MARLi records raw data at high resolutions allowing different post-averaging according to different measurement targets.   MARLi was successfully tested in summer 2016 on UWKA and NSF/NCAR C-130. Observation examples in clear and cloudy atmospheric boundary layer and around clouds will be provided to illustrate MARLi’s potential to transfer our capabilities for atmospheric boundary layer observation. MARLi is supported by a NSF MRI project.