Mesopause-region temperature and wind measurements with pseudorandom modulation continuous-wave (PMCW) lidar at 589 nm.

A study on the feasibility of using pseudorandom modulation continuous-wave (PMCW) Na lidar for mesopause-region temperature and horizontal wind measurements is presented with a number of specific geometries and associated beam-telescope overlap functions, suitable for ground-based and airborne deployments. The performance of these deployment scenarios is analyzed by scaling from the received signal and sky background and the measurement uncertainties in temperature and horizontal wind of the well-tested Colorado State University pulsed Na lidar. Using currently available high-power (~20 W) continuous-wave Na narrowband lasers, a compact PMCW bistatic Na lidar system can indeed be deployed to simultaneously measure mesopause-region temperature and horizontal winds on a 24 h continuous basis, weather permitting.