Accuracy Evaluation of Differential Absorption Lidar for Ozone Detection and Intercomparisons with Other Instruments

Differential absorption lidar is an advanced tool for investigating tropospheric ozone transport and development. High-quality differential absorption lidar data are the basis for studying the temporal and spatial evolution of ozone pollution. We assessed the quality of the ozone data generated via differential absorption lidar. By correcting the ozone lidar profile in real-time with an atmospheric correction term and comparing the lidar data to ozone data collected using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), we quantified the statistical error of the ozone lidar data in the vertical direction and determined that the data from the two instruments were generally in agreement. To verify the reliability of the ozone lidar system and the atmospheric correction algorithm, we conducted a long-term comparison experiment using data from the Canton Tower. Over the two months, the UAV and lidar data were consistent with one another, which confirmed the viability of the ozone lidar optomechanical structure and the atmospheric correction algorithm, both in real-time and over a given time duration. In addition, we also quantified the relationship between statistical error and signal-to-noise ratio. When the SNR is less than 10, the corresponding statistical error is about 40%. The statistical error was less than 15% when the signal-to-noise ratio was greater than 20, and the statistical error was mostly less than 8% when the signal-to-noise ratio was greater than 40. In general, the statistical error of the differential absorption lidar data was inversely proportional to the signal-to-noise ratio of each echo signal.