A Compact Lidar for Atmospheric Aerosol Characterization

We report on a recently designed and developed cutting-edge lidar system for aerosol remote sensing, complying with the demands for data quality and system characteristics established in ACTRIS (Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure). The first prototype of this lidar system is currently operative at the Naples ACTRIS National Facility (NF). It is the first compact and transportable two-wavelength elastic/Raman lidar system, equipped with scanning and polarization discrimination capabilities, specially designed for atmospheric investigations from a range of about 0.2 km up to 25 km, combining compactness, accuracy, autonomy in remote use, and ease of operation. The system uses an acquisition board specifically developed for transportable systems in a compact configuration that was tested at the CARS-CNR CIAO ACTRIS calibration center, demonstrating high performance in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio. ACTRIS calibration procedures for high-power aerosol lidars were carried out to assess the system performance according to the standard quality assurance protocols for ACTRIS NF operation. In this work, we report a description of the system, the calibration testing, and the results of the first measurements, demonstrating its ability to characterize aerosol optical properties in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere.