Planetary boundary layer (PBL) monitoring by means of two laser radar systems: experimental results and comparison

The PBL is the lower layer of the atmosphere that is sensitive to the effect of the Earths surface, it controls the flow of heat and momentum between the surface and the free atmosphere, thus playing a key role in atmospheric circulation. At University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Quantum Electronic and Plasma Laboratories (EQP), two mobile Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems have been developed. With these systems the monitoring of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) has been performed. The first mobile Lidar system is based on a pulsed Nd:YAG Q-Switched laser source operating at three wavelengths: 1064 nm, 532 nm and 355 nm. Acquiring the elastic backscattered signals, it has been possible to estimate the aerosolitic backscattering coefficient at the aim to reconstruct the vertical aerosol profiles. The second one is a Differential Absorption Lidar system (DIAL), composed by a CO2 laser, working in the window spectral range between 9 and 11μm. With this system it has been estimated the water vapour concentration in the PBL region using the two wavelengths 10R20 (10.591 μm) and 10R18 (10.571 μm), which represent, respectively, the absorbing wavelength and non-absorbing one of the water molecule. The comparison of the backscattered radiation at these wavelengths yields the trace gas number density as a function of distance along the field-of-view of the receiving telescope. Diurnal and nocturnal measurements have been performed simultaneity using the two Lidar/Dial systems. Vertical profiles of the aerosolitic backscattering coefficient and water vapour concentration profiles have been estimated. The results and their comparison will be present in this work