INTEGRATION METHOD AND RATIO METHOD FOR RETRIEVING EXTINCTION COEFFICIENT FROM LIDAR SIGNALS

New solution techniques to improve the accuracy of quantitatively determining the atmospheric extinction coefficient and the backscattering-to-extinction ratio from lidar signals are developed. The integration method is proposed to analytically retrieve the extinction coefficient at ground level, which has the advantage of eliminating the effect of backscattering fluctuations on the inversion results.The ratio method, on the other hand, deals with the inversion of the vertical distribution of the extinction coefficient. The main idea of this method is to begin with a calculation of the transmittance by eliminating the backscattering through ratioing lidar signals at two elevations, and subsequently derive the extinction coefficient from the transmittance, thus avert from ambiguous results caused by inappropriate assumptions on the backscattering-to-extinction ratio. Observational investigations have demonstrated that the integration method is superior to the slope method in terms of accuracy and stability, and the ratio method is reasonable and feasible as well.