Atmospheric effects on CO2 differential absorption lidar performance

CO₂ differential absorption lidar (DIAL) performance can be adversely affected by the ambient atmosphere between the laser transmitter and the target through a number of different processes. This work addresses two sources of atmospheric interference with multi-spectral CO₂ DIAL measurements: effects due to beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence and extinction due to absorption by atmospheric gases. The authors compare the effective beam size after propagation to predictions from a beam propagation model that includes turbulence effects such as beam steering and beam spreading. They also compare the experimental measurements of atmospheric extinction to those predicted by both a standard atmospheric transmission model (FASCODE) and a chemometric analysis