ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-4-793-2004 Temperature lidar measurements from 1 to 105 km altitude using resonance, Rayleigh, and Rotational Raman scattering Alpers M. 1 2 Eixmann R. 1 Fricke-Begemann C. 1 Gerding M. 1 Höffner J. 1 Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Kühlungsborn, Germany Now at German Aerospace Center (DLR), Space Management, Earth Observation Division, Bonn, Germany 24 05 2004 4 3 793 800 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/4/793/2004/acp-4-793-2004.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/4/793/2004/acp-4-793-2004.pdf

For the first time, three different temperature lidar methods are combined to obtain time-resolved complete temperature profiles with high altitude resolution over an altitude range from the planetary boundary layer up to the lower thermosphere (about 1&ndash;105 km). The Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at K&#252;hlungsborn, Germany (54&deg; N, 12&deg; E) operates two lidar instruments, using three different temperature measurement methods, optimized for three altitude ranges: (1)&nbsp;Probing the spectral Doppler broadening of the potassium D<sub>1</sub> resonance lines with a tunable narrow-band laser allows atmospheric temperature profiles to be determined at metal layer altitudes (80&ndash;105 km). (2)&nbsp;Between about 20 and 90 km, temperatures were calculated from Rayleigh backscattering by air molecules, where the upper start values for the calculation algorithm were taken from the potassium lidar results. Correction methods have been applied to account for, e.g. Rayleigh extinction or Mie scattering of aerosols below about 32 km. (3)&nbsp;At altitudes below about 25 km, backscattering in the Rotational Raman lines is strong enough to obtain temperatures by measuring the temperature dependent spectral shape of the Rotational Raman spectrum. This method works well down to about 1 km. The instrumental configurations of the IAP lidars were optimized for a 3&ndash;6 km overlap of the temperature profiles at the method transition altitudes. We present two night-long measurements with clear wave structures propagating from the lower stratosphere up to the lower thermosphere.