Water Vapor Column Measurements with Infrared Active Optical IPDA Lidar

Development of a novel triple-pulsed 2-m direct detection Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) lidar to measure column average carbon dioxide (XCO2) and water vapor (XH2O) from an airborne platform provides a new tool to advance atmospheric science studies. Column water vapor measurements are used in global mapping of weather fronts, weather forecast, and in studies of atmospheric transport, radiation, clouds and climate. Water vapor interference is source of biases in XCO2 measurements due to overlap in absorption, line broadening, and retrieval of dry air mixing of carbon dioxide. Model calculations show a XH2O measurement capability of 0.5% accuracy over 1.0 km spatial scales from the NASA B-200 aircraft. Ground testing of the integrated IPDA was in progress during December 2017-January 2018, and airborne measurements and validation of XH2O measurements over land and ocean are planned during January-February 2018. Technology developments in the measurement of XH2O are presented along with performance projections, and results from ground and airborne testing and validations in this paper