New differential absorption lidar for stratospheric ozone monitoring in Patagonia, South Argentina

International audienceAs part of environmental studies concerned with measurements of the stratospheric ozone layer, CEILAP has developed a new differential absorption lidar (DIAL) instrument. Since the initial construction of the first DIAL instrument, the Lidar Division of CEILAP has made important financial and scientific investments to upgrade this initial prototype. The new version has a bigger reception system formed by four Newtonian telescopes, each of 50 cm diameter, and a larger number of detection channels: four different wavelengths are detected simultaneously and six digital channels record the Rayleigh and Raman backscattered photons emitted by a ClXe excimer laser at 308 nm and the third harmonic of a Nd–YAG laser at 355 nm. A number of different changes have been made to increase the dynamic range of this lidar: a mechanical chopper was installed together with a gated photomultiplier in the high-energy detection channels to avoid the detector being overloaded by strong signals from lower atmospheric layers. This new version was installed inside a shelter, giving the possibility to make field campaigns outside CEILAP laboratories, for example the SOLAR campaign made in the Argentine Patagonian region during 2005 and 2006 spring periods. In this paper a full description of the instrument update is given. Intercomparisons with the ozone sonde and satellite platform instrument are presented. The results show agreement better than 10% in 16–38 km altitude range when the same airmasses are sampled. The comparison with five quasi-coincident sondes launched in Punta Arenas during spring 2005 shows good agreement between both types of measurement, with relative differences inside 1σ deviation of the lidar measurement. The comparison of the integral of height integrated lidar profiles with total ozone column measured with a Brewer photometer shows good agreement, with relative differences less than 10%