Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Prediction Of Saturation Effects On Potassium Lidar Returns, Joel R. Drake, Vincent B. Wickwar

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The Atmospheric Lidar Observatory, on the Utah State University campus, will add a potassium lidar to its existing Rayleigh scatter system in the near future. The current system accurately measures temperatures from 40 km to 85 km in altitude.

Beginning at 80 km, a potassium layer forms due to the disintegration of meteors as they enter earth’s atmosphere. ALO plans to probe this layer using an alexandrite laser scanning a wavelength region near 770 nm, where potassium absorbs light. When the light is re-emitted, it can be measured in the same manner as scattered light in a Rayleigh lidar.

Usually, …