Articles | Volume 9, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5555-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5555-2016
Research article
 | 
22 Nov 2016
Research article |  | 22 Nov 2016

Information content and sensitivity of the 3β + 2α lidar measurement system for aerosol microphysical retrievals

Sharon P. Burton, Eduard Chemyakin, Xu Liu, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Snorre Stamnes, Patricia Sawamura, Richard H. Moore, Chris A. Hostetler, and Richard A. Ferrare

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Short summary
Retrievals of aerosol microphysics exist for ground-based, airborne, and future space-borne lidar measurements. We investigate the information content of a lidar measurement system, using only a forward model but no explicit inversion. The simplified aerosol used here is applicable as a best case for all retrievals in the absence of additional constraints. We report (1) information content of the measurements; (2) uncertainties on the retrieved parameters; and (3) sources of compensating errors.