Recent Advances and the Future Potential of Ground-based Lidar in Climate Research

.In recent years considerable progress has been made in the routine application of lidar systems in atmospheric sciences. Whereas previously after the development of a sophisticated system the measurement of a few backscatter profiles was celebrated a success (and though this tendency is still often present), nowadays in many applications routine or even unattended operation has been achieved which is, of course, the minimum requirement for an observation system in climate research.

This presentation summarizes the current performance of lidar systems which have the potential to be applied in climate research, such as simple unattended backscatter and Raman lidars as well as more complicated systems such as differential absorption, multiwavelength, and coherent lidars.

It is discussed which parameters that can be determined with lidars are most important for climate research. Improvements of corresponding systems are suggested. Finally, some ongoing projects are introduced which have the potential to make valuable contributions in climate research in the future such as the development of a high-average power, scanning water vapor differential absorption lidar