Water vapor data over the ocean is especially useful for numerical weather predictions of localized heavy rains and typhoons. We have proposed the spaceborne water vapor DIAL using the OPG/OPA transmitter with absorption lines in the 1350nm band and the IPDA-DIAL method to measure water vapor just above the sea surface. In this paper, we propose the IPDA-DIAL method with a smaller laser power and telescope aperture to provide flexibility in platform selection. Measurement error simulation results show that the IPDA-DIAL observes water vapor from sea level to an altitude of 600 m with an error of 7%. Furthermore, we proposed a method to simultaneously measure water vapor and wind speed over the sea surface by measuring the backscatter coefficient at the sea surface using the IPDA-DIAL. To confirm the usefulness of this method, wind speeds obtained using CALIPSO 1064nm sea surface backscatter coefficient data were validated for the ocean near a typhoon. This enables us to observe the latent and sensible heat fluxes over the ocean in a snapshot.
Abo et al. (Thu,) studied this question.