Feasibility of a Lidar Utilizing the Glory for Measuring Particle Size of Water Clouds

A new lidar method for measuring water cloud particle size is proposed, and the feasibility of the measurement is discussed. The method utilizes the phenomenon known as the glory which is observed in open air. The proposed lidar consists of a multicolor laser transmitter and two receiver systems looking at the scattering from the target cloud with different scattering angles. Results of the theoretical study show that a system with five laser wavelengths (355, 532, 750, 1064 and 1500 nm) and two receivers located at scattering angles of 180 and 177.5–179 deg is useful for measuring particle size (mode radius of the size distribution) in a range of 4 to 12μm.