LIDAR RESEARCHER: Dr. Gary R. Swenson

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES: Dr. Xinzhao Chu, Dr. Alan Z. Liu, Dr. Chester S. Gardner

MAILING ADDRESS: University of Illinois, 1308 West Main Street, Urbana, IL 61801

TELEPHONE NUMBER: 217-333-4232

FAX NUMBER: 217-333-4303

E-MAIL ADDRESS: swenson1@uiuc.edu

WEB SITE: http://eosl.csl.uiuc.edu/

DATE: November 2, 2003

LIDAR LOCATION (CITY, COUNTRY, LAT., LONG.): Maui, Hawaii, USA (20.7 ° N, 156.3 ° W)

SITE ELEVATION: 3.05 km

PARAMETER(S) OR CONSTITUENT(S) MEASURED: mesospheric Na layer, temperature, wind (all three components), gravity waves, heat flux, momentum flux, instability

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: Middle atmosphere composition, structure, and dynamics

SPONSOR: NSF

MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE: Narrowband Na resonance fluorescence lidar for Doppler wind and temperature detection. The lidar beam is coupled with a 3.67-m diameter telescope through coude optics. The coupled lidar beam/telescope can be steered to any directions in the sky with elevation above 5 ° .

MEASUREMENT RANGE: 75-115 km, 30-60 km

VERTICAL RESOLUTION: 24 meter

FREQ. OF MEASUREMENT (TYPICALLY): 6 nights per campaign, one campaign per three months

MEASUREMENT TIMES (TYPICALLY): 90 seconds integration time for each profile, nighttime observation only

LASER TYPE AND WAVELENGTH (s): Coherent 899-21 ring dye laser pumped by a frequency-doubled Nd:YVO 4 laser (Coherent Verdi V-5) is a continuous wave master oscillator working at 589.158 nm. The ring dye laser beam is then pulse-amplified by a pulsed dye amplifier (Spectra-Physics Quanta-Ray PDA-1), which itself is pumped by an injection-seeded frequency-doubled pulsed Nd:YAG laser (Spectra-Physics Quanta-Ray PRO-250-50)

LASER ENERGY/PULSE: 40 mJ per pulse

PULSE REPETITION RATE: 50 Hz

RECEIVER SIZE AND CONFIGURATION: 3.67-meter diameter, astronomical telescope

DETECTORS USED: EMI 9817-B PMT

SIGNAL PROCESSING: photon counting

ANALOG-To-DIGITAL CONVERTER: Phillips Scientific 300 MHz discriminator and SR430 multichannel scaler

COMPUTER: Pentium III

PLATFORM (if applicable): Quick Basic

PUBLICATIONS (5 recent and/or significant):

Gardner, C. S., and W. Yang, Measurements of the dynamical cooling rate associated with the vertical transport of heat by dissipating gravity waves in the mesopause region at the Starfire Optical Range, J. Geophys. Res., 103 (D14), 16,909-16,927, 1998.

Chu, X., A. Z. Liu, G. Papen, C. S. Gardner, M. Kelley, J. Drummond, and R. Fugate, Lidar observations of elevated temperatures in bright chemiluminescent meteor trails during the 1998 Leonid shower, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27 , 1815-1818, 2000.

Gardner, C. S., Y. Zhao, and A. Z. Liu, Atmospheric stability and gravity wave dissipation in the mesopause region, J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 64 , 923-929, 2002.

Hu, X.,A. Z. Liu, C. S. Gardner, and G. R. Swenson, Characteristics of quasi-monochromatic gravity waves observed with Na lidar in the mesopause region at Starfire Optical Range, NM, Geophys. Res. Lett. 29(24): 22 - 1-22 - 4, 2002.

Liu, A. Z., R. G. Roble, J. H. Hecht, M. F. Larson and C. S. Gardner, Unstable layers in the mesopause region observed with Na lidar during the TOMEX campaign, J. Geophys. Res., in press, 2003.

COMMENTS: This narrowband Na wind/temperature lidar was formerly deployed at the Starfire Optical Range (SOR) in Albequerque, NM and coupled with a 3.5-m diameter telescope through coude optics for study of the middle atmosphere structure and dynamics. With its steerable capability, it was used to track the persistent meteor trails during the 1998 and 1998 Leonid meter showers at SOR. This lidar was also deployed in the TOMEX rocket campaign (sponsored by NASA) at SOR for investigating the instability in the mesopause region. The Maui Na lidar will be used for the TRIO rocket campaign in November 2004.