Technique for remotely measuring surface pressure from a satellite using a multicolor laser ranging system

The optical path length from a satellite to the earth's surface is strongly dependent on the atmospheric pressure along the propagation path. It is shown that surface pressures can be measured by the use of a multicolor laser ranging system to observe the change with wavelength in the optical path length from the satellite to a ground target. Equations are derived which relate surface pressure to the differential path lengths. In addition, the accuracy of the pressure measurement is evaluated in terms of the ranging system parameters. It is concluded that the results indicate that pressure accuracies of a few millibars appear feasible.