Airborne Raman lidar

We designed and tested an airborne lidar system using Raman scattering to make simultaneous measurements of methane, water vapor, and temperature in a series of flights on a NASA-operated C-130 aircraft. We present the results for methane detection, which show that the instrument has the requisite sensitivity to atmospheric trace gases. Ultimately these measurements can be used to examine the transport of chemically processed air from within the polar vortex to mid-latitudinal regions and the exchange of stratospheric air between tropical and mid-latitudinal regions.