Lidia Ana Otero1, Pablo Roberto Ristori2, Eduardo Jaime Quel3

1CONAE (Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales) Av. Paseo Colón 751 - C1063ACH Capital Federal,
2École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Environmental Fluid Mechanics and
Hydrology Laboratory (EFLUM). Station 2 CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland ,
3CEILAP (CITEFA-CONICET) - Juan B. de La Salle 4397 - B1603ALO Villa Martelli, Argentina.

 

A multiwavelength backscatter LIDAR was developed and operates at Centro de Investigaciones en Láseres y Aplicaciones, CEILAP (CITEFA-CONICET), (34.5° S, 58.5° W) to study the aerosol optical properties at different wavelengths, the boundary layer evolution, and the water vapour vertical distribution. The emission system of this LIDAR is based on a Nd:YAG laser Continuum Surelite III P-IV (600 mJ @ 1064 nm, 10 Hz), and the reception is a 50 cm f/2 Newtonian telescope. The 1064 nm detector is an avalanche photodiode (Licel). The visible and ultraviolet detectors are photomultipliers (Hamamatsu 6780-03). Nitrogen Raman channels, 387 and 607 nm are used to retrieve the aerosol extinction coefficients. Combining them with their corresponding elastic signals, 355 and 532 nm, we retrieve total to molecular backscatter and backscatter to extinction ratio. Water vapour mixing ratio profile is measured by using the Raman water vapour and nitrogen channels (408 and 387 nm). In this wok we analyzed the first results during november 2006.