Mesopause temperature profiling by potassium lidar

We report on initial measurements of potassium density and temperature profiles of the mesopause region by a containerized and hence transportable lidar instrument. The centerpiece of this lidar is a new, all-solid-state laser system. We employed a cw seeded and pulsed alexandrite ring laser working at the 770 nm wavelength of the K(D-1) finestructure line. We show that, different from the Na case, in K soundings the effects of a minor isotope have to be taken into account in the data analysis. We point out that we observe on average considerably smaller K column densities than those published in the late 1970s by a French group. We study quantitatively the influence of the Hanle and potential saturation effects on the derived temperatures. We give an example of a mesopause temperature profile taken with our transportable K lidar.