Airborne Lidar Water Vapor, Ozone, and Aerosol Measurements

.Large-scale investigations of tropospheric gases and aerosols have been made with airborne Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) systems operating from a variety of aircraft for nearly two decades. These field experiments have included extensive measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and clouds as part of studies of high-resolution atmospheric structure across different meteorological features, radiation studies of aerosol layers, surface-atmosphere interactions, boundary layer dynamics, hurricane characterization, as well as atmospheric chemistry and meteorology over the remote tropical Pacific. Ozone and aerosol distributions have been studied over many of the important ecological regions of the world including the Alaskan tundra, Amazon rainforest, Canadian boreal forest, tropical South Atlantic Basin, western Atlantic, tropical South Pacific, and the western Pacific. Each airborne lidar field experiment provided the characterization of the large-scale spatial and temporal variability of atmospheric gases and aerosols. This paper presents airborne lidar measurements of water vapor, ozone, and aerosols made during many of these field experiments and discusses them with respect to their contribution to lidar atmospheric monitoring