Rayleigh lidar temperature profiles between 15-60 km during solar campaign in Rio Gallegos (51°55' S, 69°14'W), Argentina. Methodology and results

International audienceSince 2005 the lidar division of CEILAP with researchers from France and Japan and with the financial support of JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) conducted the installation of an experimental site measurements of atmospheric parameters in the Patagonian city of Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina. The measurement campaign period from 2005 to 2007 was called SOLAR (Stratospheric Ozone Lidar in ARgentina). The main objective was to study the evolution of the polar vortex on the continent and the stratospheric ozone profile between 15-45 km altitude. In 2006 we began to obtain other products such as aerosol content and temperature profile in the stratosphere. The determination of temperature measurements from Rayleigh scattering is an important remote sensing technique to obtain stratospheric profiles. This technique is applied to signals acquired by a lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) called DIAL (Differential Absorption Lidar) for determination of stratospheric ozone profiles. Currently the site is part of the UVO3Patagonia in collaboration with the laboratory of Ozone and UV Radiation in the city of Punta Arenas, Chile at 200 km, www.uvo3patagonia.com. In this paper we show the technique to measure temperature profiles in the stratosphere between 15-60 km altitude. The inversion temperature from photoncounting is detected from light scattered by the Rayleigh line at 355 nm generated from a Quantel YG-980 laser. An analysis of the errors involved in the inversion process and analysis of a case of study are shown for the period 2005-2007. The results presented in this paper are compared with measurements made by HIRDLS instrument (High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder) onboard the NASA AURA satellite platform, Ballon-borne and NCEP database