Abstract: It is desirable to determine the internal structure of clouds during smoke tests. One method for doing this involves using lidar returns from a cloud and inversion of the lidar equation. Conventionally, the latter requires a knowledge of the attenuation at the end of the path of interest. This is seldom known or measurable with sufficient accuracy. In this presentation, a new iterative inversion algorithm is described. The new algorithm uses the total attenuation through the desired path length as input, rather than the attenuation of the last range cell. The total attenuation is easy to determine accurately. For example, it may be measured using the lidar and a backstop of known reflectivity placed at the end of the desired path. !6
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