Development and Testing of a Differential Absorption LIDAR system for Greenhouse Gas Measurements

Our objective is to develop accurate and reliable methods for quantifying distributed carbon sources and sinks to support both mitigation efforts and climate change research. We will describe progress toward a field-deployable, eye-safe differential absorption LIDAR system. The current version of our system utilizes a high repetition rate (>200 kHz), 200 ns pulsed fiber amplifier driven by tunable DFB lasers around 1602 nm. Collection is performed using a small (3' diameter) telescope and an avalanche photodiode. We demonstrate a rapid hard target measurement of ambient levels of CO2 in our 100m test facility using low powers from the fiber laser and a highly-retro-reflecting target. We also discuss progress toward a range resolved measurement in the test facility, planned upgrades to the facility, and the development of a low-backscatter beam dump for range-limited applications.