Airborne lidar measurements of ozone, water vapor, and aerosols in large-scale atmospheric studies

The NASA Langley Research Center´s airborne DIfferential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) systems have been used to study large-scale atmospheric distributions of ozone, water vapor, and aerosols in 12 international field experiments over the last 13 years. This paper describes the authors´ airborne DIAL systems and discusses recent measurements of ozone and aerosol distributions in the summertime troposphere over the western Pacific and in the wintertime Arctic stratosphere. Airborne DIAL measurements of tropospheric water vapor and aerosol distributions during the daytime and nighttime are also discussed