Remote measurement of atmospheric temperatures by Raman lidar.

The Raman shifted return of a lidar system has been utilized to make atmospheric temperature measurements. The measurements were made along a horizontal path at temperatures between -20 and +30 C and at ranges of about 100 meters. The temperature data were acquired by recording the intensity ratio of two portions of the rotational Raman spectrum which were simultaneously sampled from a preset range. Measurements were made to an accuracy of plus or minus 3 C with 1-minute temporal resolution.