Ultraviolet Rayleigh–Mie lidar by use of a multicavity Fabry–Perot filter for accurate temperature profiling of the troposphere

A UV Rayleigh–Mie scattering lidar system at 355 nm has been upgraded for more-accurate temperature profiling of the troposphere by use of a new multicavity Fabry–Perot etalon (MCFPE) filter. The MCFPE filter, which was designed to improve the stability and operational characteristics of the lidar system, has three filter bandpass functions and separates one Mie scattering and two Rayleigh scattering signals from the lidar return signal and simultaneously acts as a laser frequency discriminator to lock the laser frequency. Moreover, a high-resolution grating is employed to block signal interference from Raman scattering and the solar background. A practical lidar system, which features strong system stabilization and high measurement accuracy, has been built, and the performance of the lidar system has been verified by comparison of temperature profiling between the lidar and a radiosonde. Good agreement between the two instrument measurements was obtained in terms of lapse rate and inversion layer height. Statistical temperature errors of less than 1 K up to a height of 3 km are obtainable with 5 min observation time for daytime measurements.