A Minimum Variance Method for Lidar Signal Inversion

Abstract

Abstract A method for the inversion of elastic lidar data is proposed that determines the value of the extinction coefficient to be used as a boundary condition, by minimizing the variance of the extinction coefficients in a delimited region. The method works well for single-component atmospheres, where the delimited region contains aerosols from a single distribution of concentrations. For situations where there may be two or more distributions (e.g., a smoke plume in the ambient atmosphere), the spatial regions containing each distribution must be identified and treated separately. Examples of inversions are given, including an example of a range–time scan showing the amount of shot-to-shot consistency that may be obtained from the method.