Airborne lidar LEANDRE II for water-vapor profiling in the troposphere II First results

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Abstract
The airborne lidar LEANDRE II, described in part I [Appl. Opt. 40, 3450–3461 (2001)], has been flown on the French Atmospheric Research Aircraft to perform lower-troposphere (0–3.5-km) measurements of the water-vapor mixing ratio. We present and discuss the method used for retrieval of the water-vapor mixing ratio and analyze systematic and random measurement errors in relation to instrument design and performance. The results of a series of test flights are presented. With a 0.8-km horizontal resolution and a 300-m vertical resolution, the standard deviation of the measurement error ranges from approximately 0.05 g kg-1 at 3.5 km to 0.3–0.4 g kg-1 near the ground, in agreement with the predicted random error. Comparisons with dew-point hygrometer measurements show a vertically averaged difference of ±0.15 g kg-1, approximately equal to the observed water-vapor variability.