Development of differential absorption LiDAR system at 1.57 μm for sensing carbon dioxide in China

To facilitate understanding of the relationship between the most significant greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and human activities, we have developed a differential absorption lidar (DIAL) detection system at 1.57 μm. The goal of this lidar system is to detect the temporal and spatial distribution of atmospheric carbon dioxide gas from 0.3 km to 3 km in the atmosphere. Beginning in 2009, the system was initially completed in 2013. Since then, we have been constantly experimenting and repeated instrumentation improvements. From July 2015 to the present, we carried out vertical and horizontal measurement experiments in the urban area of Wuhan, Hubei Province and the suburb of Huainan, Anhui Province, China. This article presents a fast and optimized inversion algorithm to improve the speed and accuracy. Experimental results show that the DIAL system and inversion algorithm are stable and reliable.