On the use cirrus clouds for elastic lidar calibration

摘要

A key parameter to retrieve backscatter coefficient from elastic lidar signals is the backscattercoefficient at a reference height. Traditionally, such a calibration height must fulfil the criterion thatat this altitude the particle backscatter coefficient is negligible compared to the molecularbackscatter value. Such clean‐air conditions are normally given in the upper troposphere. Thisprocedure cannot be applied for those channels that present low signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) at thereference height. To solve this problem an alternative calibration method using cirrus clouds ispresented.