Performance
Atmospheric and Meteorological Lidar Backscatter lidar for aerosols and clouds

LRANs perform very well in clear or slightly cloudy air. That said, they are ideally suited to studies of semi-transparent clouds.

LRANs have a range of several kilometers, or even a hundred kilometers, depending on laser energy, telescope size and measurement time, which can vary from a few seconds to a few hours, depending on the phenomenon being studied.

LRAN performance is severely limited by the presence of dense clouds and extreme weather events such as snowstorms, sandstorms and heavy rain. That said, significant lidar echoes are obtained over moderate rainfall, suggesting that LRAN measurements can be used for this application.

Atmospheric transmittance is between 1 and 0. For visible and near-IR LRANs, it is a function of the particle optical thickness EO_p. The molecular optical thickness EO_m becomes troublesome in the UV, particularly at 266 nm...