Eduardo J. Quel

CEILAP (CITEFA-CONICET) Juan B. De La Salle 4397 B1603ALO VILLA MARTELLI ARGENTINA

Lidar activities at CEILAP began near 1992 with a retrodiffusion system used mainly to measure ABL and cirrus clouds. It is placed at Villa Martelli, near Buenos Aires city, and it is still working. At present, at the same site, the Lidar Division has set up and operates another lidar system with a laser emitting three wavelengths (1064, 532 and 355 nm) and detecting 3 Rayleigh and 3 Raman lines (two of them corresponding to nitrogen and one to water vapor). This instrument together with a solar photometer of AERONET (NASA), allows the study of aerosols properties, and also of other atmospheric parameters. In addition, at the same site there are 2 UV instruments, a pyranometer and a pyrgeometer. Also the Lidar Division, has set up at Río Gallegos city (51º 36’S, 69º 19’W), located in the southern part of the South American continent, a DIAL (Differential Absorption Lidar) system to measure stratospheric ozone, a Raman lidar to measure tropospheric water vapor profiles and a retrodiffusion lidar similar to the VM one, to measure also tropospheric aerosols properties. All these systems are complemented with ground based passive remote sensing instruments to measure UV and columns of aerosols (AERONET) and water vapor and a piranometer. The Lidar Division is also working in the development of a lidar system to be used at Auger Observatory. The purpose of this system is to measure atmospheric properties necessaries to determine correctly the high energy of cosmic rays arriving to the Malargüe, Mendoza, experimental site. It will be composed of six mirrors of 40 cm diameter each (1m² total surface), with f=1 m. A high repetition laser will be used and the estimated horizontal range will be 35 km.