Inversion of water cloud lidar signals based on accumulated depolarization ratio

The relation between the accumulated single scattering factor and the layer accumulated depolarization ratio appears to be independent of the geometry of the measurements and contains information on the optical depth and thus on the extinction coefficient. A simple equation is developed to retrieve the extinction coefficient from the total integrated signal and the integrated depolarization ratio measurements. The results compare well with Klett and Weinman lidar inversion techniques. The results from the measurements of the integrated depolarization ratio can be used to set the far end initial extinction coefficient value required for Klett and Weinman lidar inversion or can be used directly.