title: Airborne measurements of atmospheric methane column abundance using a pulsed integrated-path differential absorption lidar.
abstract: We report airborne measurements of the column abundance of atmospheric methane made over an altitude range of 3-11 km using a direct detection integrated-path differential-absorption lidar with a pulsed laser emitting at 1651 nm. The laser transmitter was a tunable, seeded optical parametric amplifier pumped by a Nd:YAG laser, and the receiver used a photomultiplier detector and photon-counting electronics. The results follow the expected changes with aircraft altitude, and the measured line shapes and optical depths show good agreement with theoretical calculations.
authors.affiliation: NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Science and Exploration Directorate, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA. haris.riris@nasa.gov
authors.forename: Haris
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Riris
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Numata
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Stewart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ramanathan
authors.forename: Martha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dawsey
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.forename: Randolph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kawa
authors.forename: James B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Abshire