Abstract

Wide-area airborne lidar detection of optically transmissive cell structures in the upper mixed layer of the ocean water column is reported here for the first time. The field experiments were performed using NASA’s Airborne Oceanographic Lidar (AOL) operating onboard a fixed wing aircraft at 150-m flight altitude. Pulses from a 337.1-nm nitrogen laser were repetitively transmitted vertically downward into the ocean water column. The laser-induced water Raman backscatter pulse at 381-nm wavelength was depth (or time) resolved into 40 bins having widths of ~2.5 nsec each. Examples of temporally recorded pulse waveforms of the back- scattered water Raman signal are presented together with a resulting time series profile taken during an offshore-to-onshore experimental mission flight line.

© 1983 Optical Society of America