Multi-function Airborne Raman Lidar (MARLi)
Status
(a) Lidar scattering ratio (LSR), (b) linear depolarization ratio (LDR), (c) temperature cross-sections, and (d) water vapor mixing ratio (WVMR) along 40° N from the ocean (left side) to the coast around the Shelter Cove on June 30, 2016, based on MARLi measurements from the UWKA.
MARLi was an NSF-MRI funded new instrument development to provide water vapor, temperature, aerosol, and cloud profiles within the planetary boundary layer (PBL). MARLi was successfully flight-tested on the UWKA and the NSF/NCAR C-130 for over sixty-hours in the summer of 2016.
MARLi transforms our capability to observe the atmosphere at horizontal resolutions ranging from ~100 m to ~1 km and can revolutionize a range of atmospheric processes studies. These include: advancing our understanding of small-scale interactions between clouds and their environment, investigating air-sea and air-land interactions; documenting boundary layer structure over heterogeneous surfaces and under cloudy conditions; examining the mesoscale atmospheric environments and dynamics.