| Popis: |
Rayleigh lidar opened a portion of the atmosphere, from 30 to 90 km, to ground-based observations. Rayleigh-scatter observations were made at the Atmospheric Lidar Observatory (ALO) at Utah State University (USU) from 1993–2004 between 45 and 90 km. The lidar consisted of a 0.44-m diameter mirror, a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser opera'ng at 532-nm at 30- Hz at either 18- or 24-W, giving power- aperture products (PAPs) of 2.7- or 3.6- Wm2, respec'vely, and one detector channel. An example of what was accomplished with this system is shown as part of Fig. 1. The temperature climatology was based on ~5000 hours of observa'ons carried out over ~900 nights. The temperatures, with 3-km al'tude resolu'on, were averaged over periods of 31 days by 11 years. The ALO Rayleigh lidar is currently being upgraded, as indicated, as indicated in Fig. 1, to extend observations upward into the lower thermosphere and downward to the lower stratosphere. |
