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... > Instruments > Earth Remote Sensing Instruments > Active Remote Sensing > Altimeters > Lidar/Laser Altimeters > HALO

Preferred term

HALO  

Definition

  • A deeper understanding of how clouds will respond to a warming climate is one of the outstanding challenges in climate science. Uncertainties in the response of clouds, and particularly shallow clouds, have been identified as the dominant source of the discrepancy in model estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity. As the community gains a deeper understanding of the many processes involved, there is a growing appreciation of the critical role played by fluctuations in water vapor and the coupling of water vapor and atmospheric circulations. Reduction of uncertainties in cloud-climate feedbacks and convection initiation as well as improved understanding of processes governing these effects will result from profiling of water vapor in the lower troposphere with improved accuracy and vertical resolution compared to existing airborne and spaceborne measurements. NASA/LaRC (Langley Research Center) in Hampton, VA, developed the airborne instrument HALO (High Altitude Lidar Observatory) to address the observational needs of NASA's weather, climate, carbon cycle, and atmospheric composition focus areas. HALO is a multi-function airborne lidar to measure atmospheric H2O and CH4 mixing ratios and aerosol/cloud/ocean optical properties using the DIAL (DIfferential Absorption Lidar) and HSRL (High Spectral Resolution Lidar) techniques, respectively. HALO is designed as an airborne simulator for future space-based greenhouse gas DIAL missions called out by the 2018 Earth Science Decadal Survey and serves as testbed for risk reduction of key technologies required to enable future spaceborne missions. To respond to a wide range of airborne process studies, HALO can be rapidly reconfigured to provide either CH4 DIAL+HSRL, H2O DIAL+HSRL, or CH4 DIAL+H2O DIAL measurements using three different laser transmitters and a single multi-channel and multi-wavelength receiver. This paper will provide an overview of the HALO program including advancements of new laser technologies for airborne and spaceborne measurements of water vapor and methane and preliminary CH4+aerosol measurements from recent airborne test flights. (en)

Broader concept

Change note

  • 2020-06-22 14:34:48.0 [tstevens] Insert Concept add broader relation (HALO [0e3c8f3e-c229-4760-b81c-fd0150254aaa,560404] - Lidar/Laser Altimeters [ec76ff59-7450-48a0-9152-7c3531e609fd,546155]);
  • 2020-06-22 14:36:20.0 [tstevens] insert AltLabel (id: null category: primary text: High Altitude Lidar Observatory language code: en); insert Definition (id: null text: A deeper understanding of how clouds will respond to a warming climate is one of the outstanding challenges in climate science. Uncertainties in the response of clouds, and particularly shallow clouds, have been identified as the dominant source of the discrepancy in model estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity. As the community gains a deeper understanding of the many processes involved, there is a growing appreciation of the critical role played by fluctuations in water vapor and the coupling of water vapor and atmospheric circulations. Reduction of uncertainties in cloud-climate feedbacks and convection initiation as well as improved understanding of processes governing these effects will result from profiling of water vapor in the lower troposphere with improved accuracy and vertical resolution compared to existing airborne and spaceborne measurements. NASA/LaRC (Langley Research Center) in Hampton, VA, developed the airborne instrument HALO (High Altitude Lidar Observatory) to address the observational needs of NASA's weather, climate, carbon cycle, and atmospheric composition focus areas. HALO is a multi-function airborne lidar to measure atmospheric H2O and CH4 mixing ratios and aerosol/cloud/ocean optical properties using the DIAL (DIfferential Absorption Lidar) and HSRL (High Spectral Resolution Lidar) techniques, respectively. HALO is designed as an airborne simulator for future space-based greenhouse gas DIAL missions called out by the 2018 Earth Science Decadal Survey and serves as testbed for risk reduction of key technologies required to enable future spaceborne missions. To respond to a wide range of airborne process studies, HALO can be rapidly reconfigured to provide either CH4 DIAL+HSRL, H2O DIAL+HSRL, or CH4 DIAL+H2O DIAL measurements using three different laser transmitters and a single multi-channel and multi-wavelength receiver. This paper will provide an overview of the HALO program including advancements of new laser technologies for airborne and spaceborne measurements of water vapor and methane and preliminary CH4+aerosol measurements from recent airborne test flights. language code: en);

URI

https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/0e3c8f3e-c229-4760-b81c-fd0150254aaa

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