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Howard University Beltsville Research Site
Howard University Raman Lidar (HURL) Measurements

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Instrument

Measurements

Description

A Raman lidar system that is designed to make both daytime and nighttime measurements of atmospheric water vapor and aerosols; the lidar uses narrow bandpass filters to measure:

the Rayleigh/Mie and pure rotational Raman signals at 354.7±0.13 nm,
the Raman scattered photons from nitrogen molecules at 386.7±0.13 nm, and
the Raman scattered photons from water vapor molecules at 407.5±0.13 nm

- Primary purpose of the lidar is to characterize temporal and vertical distributions of water vapor and dynamics processes in the boundary layer for evaluation of mesoscale models.
- The Lidar is also used to measure cirrus cloud optical depths.
- Collaboration consists of researchers from the Department of Physics and the Program in Atmospheric Sciences at Howard University, the Laboratory for Atmospheres at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and The NOAA-Center for Atmospheres at Howard.

Objectives

HURL is designed to make both daytime and nighttime measurements of atmospheric water vapor, aerosols and cirrus cloud optical depths in order to to characterize temporal and vertical distributions of water vapor and dynamics processes in the boundary layer for evaluation of mesoscale models
Collect data to supplement radiation measurement instrumentation co-located at the Beltsville Research Laboratories as required by the Modeling Team
Support NWS effort to develop “consensus reference” for radiosonde standards
Investigation of “thin-dry-layers” dynamics
Investigation of cloud optical thickness
Operate lidar on a regular schedule for graduate student training
Maintain viability of data by scheduled comparison of radiosonde, microwave radiometer, and GPS
Participate in measuring campaign with co-located lidars (WAVES)
Participate in measuring campaigns with regional lidars
Incorporate automatic bore site alignment

Lidar team
Demetrius Venable, PhD, Professor	dvenable@howard.edu	301-9373728
Mariana Adam, PhD, Research Associate	madam@howard.edu	301-4199034
Rasheen Connell, PhD Student	rasheenc@hotmail.com	301-9372841
Monique Calhoun, PhD Student	moniquecalhoun@yahoo.com	301-9372841
Colaborators:
David Whiteman, PhD NASA/GSFC, Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch Howard University Lecturer	david.n.whiteman@nasa.gov	301-6146703
Belay Demoz, PhD NASA/GSFC, Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch NASA Administrator's Fellow (2005-2007) @ Howard University	belay.b.demoz@nasa.gov	301-4199034