The preliminary measurements of water cloud microphysical properties using multiple scattering Raman lidar

Clouds play an important role in the energy balance and water cycle for the Earth-Atmosphere system, and the accurate measurement of their macro-and microphysical properties is important for understanding atmospheric physical processes, studying aerosol-cloud interactions and improving numerical model parameterization schemes. In this paper, a multiple scattering Raman lidar system is developed, which greatly simplifies the structure of the optical system and solves the complexity of the optical system in detecting the cloud characteristic parameters by adopting the dual field-of-view (FOV) technique. Based on the Quasi-Small-Angle (QSA) approximation model, the forward single or multiple scattering signals of cloud droplet particles at the bottom of the cloud layer at the dual-FOV channel and the vibrational Raman backscattering signals of nitrogen molecules are simultaneously detected. Using the correlation between the width of the forward scattering peak and the particle size of the cloud droplets, an iterative algorithm for the Raman signal is proposed for retrieving cloud parameters such as the extinction coefficient, the effective radius, and the liquid water content (LWC). To verify the feasibility of the system and retrieval algorithms, some preliminary measurements were carried out and the resulting liquid water content was compared and verified by combined observations with a co-located microwave radiometer. The experimental results show that the average deviation of the liquid water content is 0.004 g/m3, and the relative error is 20%. The system has an ability to invert cloud microphysical properties, which provides an effective method for further study of aerosol-cloud interactions. •The analytical modeling for multiple scattering Raman lidar is proposed.•The method for detecting microphysical properties of clouds is analyzed.•An iterative algorithm for inverting microphysical properties of clouds is proposed.