Design of Algorithms to Extract Atmospheric Aerosol Extinction from Raman Lidar Data

Abstract: This thesis project describes how the retrieval of aerosol extinction and backscatter coefficients is computed from data obtained with a Raman lidar at FOI, Swedish Defense Research Agency. The theory is described, the implementation is done and problems discovered along the way are discussed. The lidar use the wavelength 355 nm and the Raman shift in nitrogen at 387 nm. The retrieved algorithm gives extinction coefficient between 1 500 and 10 000 meters while the backscatter coefficient covers the span 800 to 15 000 meters. However there is skewness in the backscatter coefficient that needs to be further investigated. Tests indicate that the skewness comes from the way the measurements are done at FOI.