Detection of atmospheric aerosol flow using a transit-time lidar velocimeter

A cross-correlation analysis of lidar echoes from an artificial tracer transported through two closely spaced atmospheric scattering volumes provides a remote measurement of the wind speed along the line joining the two volumes. A pulsed nitrogen transit-time lidar has been developed and used to make these measurements in real-time intervals of approximately 4 sec. The wind speed measurements are compared with conventional anemometer data. An extension of this technique to natural aerosol concentrations that exploits the laser wavelength dependence of the system SNR is discussed.