High-resolution atmospheric water vapor measurements with a scanning differential absorption lidar

Abstract. The scanning differential absorption lidar (DIAL) of the University of Hohenheim (UHOH) is presented. The UHOH DIAL is equipped with an injection-seeded frequency-stabilized high-power Ti:sapphire laser operated at 818 nm with a repetition rate of 250 Hz. A scanning transceiver unit with a 80 cm primary mirror receives the atmospheric backscatter signals. The system is capable of water vapor measurements with temporal resolutions of a few seconds and a range resolution between 30 and 300 m at daytime. It allows to investigate surface-vegetation-atmosphere exchange processes with high resolution. In this paper, we present the design of the instrument and illustrate its performance with recent water vapor measurements taken in Stuttgart-Hohenheim and in the frame of the HD(CP)² Observational Prototype Experiment (HOPE). HOPE was located near research center Jülich, in western Germany, in spring 2013 as part of the project "High Definition of Clouds and Precipitation for advancing Climate Prediction" (HD(CP)²). Scanning measurements reveal the 3-dimensional structures of the water vapor field. The influence of uncertainties within the calculation of the absorption cross-section at wavelengths around 818 nm for the WV retrieval is discussed. Radiosonde intercomparisons show a very small bias between the instruments of only (−0.04 ± 0.11) g m⁻³ or (−1.0 ± 2.3) % in the height range of 0.5 to 3 km.