Target Atmospheres

Having a common scattering target with internally consistent backscatter wavelength dependence enables meaningful "equal resource/equal target" comparisons of GTWS concepts that employ Doppler lidars. While the Science Definition Team (SDT) realizes that aerosol backscatter from the atmosphere will vary over several orders of magnitude, will vary over altitude, latitude and season and will also vary over space/time scales that are not readily modeled, the GLOBE, SABLE/GABLE backscatter surveys, and the AFGL MODTRAN aerosol data bases provide a nearly consistent picture of backscatter climatology.

Design Atmospheres for use in GTWS Concept Studies Reference atmosphere data files :

• Design Atmospheres (PDF) for GTWS Document
• target106n (PDF) target atmosphere file for 1.06 mm
• target205n (PDF) target atmosphere file for 2.0519 mm
• target355n (PDF) target atmosphere file for 0.355 mm
• target532n (PDF) target atmosphere file for 0.532 mm
• Target atmospheres (PDF) for use in DWL Concept Studies Submitted to the New Millennium Program

Winzipped DAT Files

The zipped data files linked from the original page were not preserved by the Internet Archive and are not currently available for download. The PDF versions of each target atmosphere are linked above.