Development and Calibration of 532 nm Standard Aerosol Lidar with Low Blind Area

Abstract

To better calibrate the aerosol lidar network constructed by the China Meteorological Administration, and ensure the data quality observed by the network, the Meteorological Observation Center (China Meteorological Administration) and the University of Naples (Italy) jointly developed a “high quality 532 nm Raman aerosol lidar” (REAL lidar) in 2018. The ability to detect Raman–Mie scattering signals was improved through signal detection in a large dynamic range. This study compared the REAL lidar with the reference lidar (European ACTRIS aerosol lidar network) considering three wavelengths and eight channels. The results show that both the original signals and data products of the two radars exhibited good consistency. In the calibration application of China’s domestic lidar network, after REAL calibration, the relative average and standard deviations of the backscattering coefficient of the in-station lidar decreased from 55.4% to 7.9% and from 64% to 9.9%, respectively. The effect was significant, which indicates that REAL is an aerosol lidar with a high-performance index. The results satisfy the demand for calibration of the aerosol lidar network, and the REAL was successfully applied to the calibration of the aerosol lidar network.