Abstract
Backscatter of several Earth surfaces was characterized in the laboratory as a function of incidence angle with a focused continuous-wave 9.1-μm CO2 Doppler lidar for use as possible calibration targets. Some targets showed negligible angular dependence, while others showed a slight increase with decreasing angle. The Earth-surface signal measured over the complex Californian terrain during a 1995 NASA airborne mission compared well with laboratory data. Distributions of the Earth’s surface signal shows that the lidar efficiency can be estimated with a fair degree of accuracy, preferably with uniform Earth-surface targets during flight for airborne or space-based lidar.
© 1998 Optical Society of America
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