Water-vapour measurements up to the lower stratosphere — the high power raman lidar at the schneefernerhaus

A high-power Raman lidar system has been developed at the high-altitude research station Schneefernerhaus (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany) at 2675 m, at the side of an existing differential-absorption lidar. It is based on a 180-W single-line XeCl laser and on two Newtonian telescopes (up to 1.5-m-diameter). In this way a vertical range up to more than 20 km and an accuracy level of the order of 10 % can be achieved for a measurement time of 1 h. Temperature measurements have been demonstrated to altitudes up to 54 km with just 1 % of the full 308-nm backscatter signal. Significantly higher altitudes are expected when using a chopper that cuts off the first 10 km or for 353 nm.