Wind measurements with incoherent Doppler lidar based on iodine filters at night and day

An incoherent Doppler wind lidar based on the iodine filter at 532 nm is presented for day and night wind measurements, which was developed by the Key Laboratory of Ocean Remote Sensing of Ministry of Education of China, Ocean University of China. The system operates with a fiber and a narrow-band interference filter to reject daylight. A photon counter is used to improve the detection range. Two iodine filters are used to lock the transmitting laser frequency and to discriminate the Doppler frequency shift, respectively. The method to retrieve the wind profile is described. The detection range of wind profiles (with a 136 m vertical resolution) extends from 100 m to 15 km at night and to 12 km during daytime. The detection range covers the troposphere in the middle and high latitude areas. The comparison experiments between the lidar and radiosonde were performed both during the night and during the day. The standard deviation of the wind direction and speed were 15.5 degrees and 3.1 m/s at night and 15.7 degrees and of 3.2 m/s during the day. This system also has the capability to measure the aerosol backscattering ratio.