Atmospheric temperature profiling by joint Raman, Rayleigh and Fe Boltzmann lidar measurements

Simultaneous and complete temperature profiles from near ground to about 100 km are essential for studying the dynamical coupling between different atmospheric layers. They are acquired by combining three different lidar techniques at Wuhan, China (30.5°N, 114.4°E). The atmospheric temperatures from about 3 to 25 km are calculated from the nitrogen molecule density profiles obtained from the N2 vibrational Raman backscatter, while the atmospheric temperatures between 30 and ∼75 km are calculated by the standard Rayleigh scattering method. The temperatures in the 80–100 km altitude region are derived from the Fe Boltzmann technique. The temperature profiles measured by our lidar systems exhibit good agreement when compared with the radiosonde and satellite data, as well as the model. A Lomb–Scargle spectral analysis of the normalized temperature perturbations in the altitude range from 4 to 60 km shows that the spectral slopes of the vertical wave number spectra tended to −3 for large vertical wave numbers. This is consistent with the model predictions of saturated gravity wave spectra.