Lidar Simulation Model: PADS Optical Property Model

The AGM provides optical properties based upon either the AFGL Optical Property Models or from the Lidar baseline profiles. The Pure/Spectral atmosphere's optical property model is a subset of the GADS AFGL Optical Property Model. Only median backscatter and attenuation profiles are provided given a location. The lidar baseline probabilistic aerosol backscatter profiles were constructed from ground-based lidar data taken at JPL and WPL. The circles indicate the median value (including data "dropouts") as a function of altitude. The number in the circles is the percentage of total observations associated with that particular median. The + 1 sigma error bars were computed from several hundred profiles. The model assumes that backscatter is lognormal around the median at all levels. Molecular attenuation profiles are based on AFGL's default atmosphere profiles (Kneizys et al., 1996).