Lidar activity at Lapan, Indonesia

As stratospheric aerosols play an important role in the atmospheric radiation system, the amount of stratospheric aerosol has been monitored at many observations. In particular. there have been significant effects on the radiation budgets of the Earth after large volcanic eruptions. Stratospheric aerosols are also useful as tracers to study the transportation mechanism in the stratosphere. In order to understand the role of the stratospheric aerosols, it is important to monitor the variations in the amount of stratospheric aerosols as well as their heights and latitudinal variations. Many lidar measurements have been made on the stratospheric aerosol layer to date. The lidar transmitter system we employ uses the fundamental (1061 nn), second harmonic (532nm) and third harmonic (355nm) wavelengths of a Nd:YAG laser. The second harmonic backscatter light and its Raman backscatter light (607nm) are collected by a 28 cm and a 35 cm diameter telescope.