Proceedings of the 30th International Laser Radar Conference

This volume presents papers from the biennial International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC), the world’s leading event in the field of atmospheric research using lidar. With growing environmental concerns to address such as air quality deterioration, stratospheric ozone depletion, extreme weather events, and changing climate, the lidar technique has never been as critical as it is today to monitor, alert, and help solve current and emerging problems of this century. The 30th occurrence of the ILRC unveils many of the newest results and discoveries in atmospheric science and laser remote sensing technology. The 30th ILRC conference program included all contemporary ILRC themes, leveraging on both the past events’ legacy and the latest advances in lidar technologies and scientific discoveries, with participation by young scientists particularly encouraged.

This proceedings volume includes a compilation of cutting-edge research on the following themes: new lidar techniques and methodologies; measurement of clouds and aerosol properties; atmospheric temperature, wind, turbulence, and waves; atmospheric boundary layer processes and their role in air quality and climate; greenhouse gases, tracers, and transport in the free troposphere and above; the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere; synergistic use of multiple instruments and techniques, networks and campaigns; model validation and data assimilation using lidar measurements; space-borne lidar missions, instruments and science; ocean lidar instrumentation, techniques, and retrievals; and past, present and future synergy of heterodyne and direct detection lidar applications. In addition, special sessions celebrated 50 years of lidar atmospheric observations since the first ILRC, comprising review talks followed by a plenary discussion on anticipated future directions.

John T. Sullivan Dr. John T. Sullivan currently works in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD). He is currently the NASA Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) project scientist and lead for the NASA GSFC NDACC transportable lidar systems for the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). His expertise is in performing measurements of atmospheric constituents using active remote sensing techniques, such as lidar (light detection and ranging), for applications such as air quality, satellite validation, and stratospheric trends (through NDACC). Dr. Sullivan has been critical in designing, calibrating, and deploying transportable lidars for measuring tropospheric and stratospheric ozone profiles in NASA campaigns, such as DISCOVER-AQ and KORUS-AQ and various NDACC intercomparison campaigns. He has played a lead role for several collaborative field deployments: PI for the 2018NASA-OWLETS (Chesapeake Bay), Co-PI for the 2021 TRACER-AQ (Houston, TX), and Co-PI for 2023 STAQS (LA/Chicago/NYC). He is also a member of the Committee for Atmospheric LIDAR Application Studies (CLAS) Committee for the American Meteorological Society.

Thierry Leblanc
Dr. Thierry Leblanc obtained his PhD in Atmospheric Physics at University of Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France) in 1995. He joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1996, where he currently leads the Atmospheric Lidar Group. His research over the past two decades has focused on the long-term monitoring of atmospheric composition by lidar in the troposphere and middle atmosphere, more specifically on the evolution (depletion and recovery) of the stratospheric ozone layer, long-term changes in temperature, water vapor, and aerosols in relation to climate variability and change, and changes in air quality. Dr. Leblanc is a member of several international SME groups, including the International Committeefor Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS), the Network for The Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) Steering Committee, and the WMO/GCOS Reference Upper Air Network (GRUAN) Working Group.

Sara Tucker
Dr. Sara Tucker has spent the majority of her career focused on Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) systems and their applications to atmospheric studies and weather prediction.  She received her Ph.D. in 2001 from the University of Colorado where she studied Electrical Engineering with a focus on hybrid optical-digital imaging systems. She worked for Lockheed Martin Coherent Technologies and NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory before joining Ball Aerospace in 2010.  At Ball, Dr. Tucker works as a Systems Engineering Staff Consultant, providing systems engineering expertise, modelling tools, mentoring, and training for novel space-based lidar mission concepts.  She has served as principal investigator for several NASA Earth Science studies to develop and demonstrate DWL technologies for future space-based operation.  Dr. Tucker is currently a member of American Meteorological Society Satellite Meteorology, Oceanography, and Climate (SatMOC) committee, Chair of NASA’s Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC), a member of the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee (NAC-SC), and a member of the International Committee for Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS).

Belay Demoz
Dr. Belay Demoz holds a doctoral degree in Atmospheric Physics from the University of Nevada and Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. He is the Director of the Joint Center For Earth Systems and Technology (JCET) and professor of physics at UMBC. Prior to UMBC, he was Professor of Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Howard University, Director of Graduate Studies and  Principal PI’s at the Beltsville Research Campus. Before joining academia, Dr. Demoz has worked for the private industry as a NASA contractor, followed bytime as a Civil Servant with. His research interests center on observation and instrumentation in atmospheric physics, dynamics, and climate. He has chaired the Committee for Atmospheric LIDAR Application Studies (CLAS) Committee for the American Meteorological Society, chaired several national and international symposia and conferences and well serves as member and/or Chair of advisory groups for national as well as state agencies and organizations

Edwin Eloranta
Ed Eloranta began working with lidar as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 investigating multiply scattered lidar returns. Since receiving his PhD 1972, he has led a lidar research group at the UW developing meteorological lidar systems to study boundary layers, clouds and aerosols. He was member of the team which constructed the first High Spectral Resolution Lidar and has subsequently worked to make the instrument a robust operational instrument. His research group currently deploysHSRL instruments in field programs around the globe. He is a fellow of American Meteorological Society and of the Optical Society of America

Chris Hostetler
Dr. Hostetler is the Senior Scientist for Active Remote Sensing at NASA Langley Research Center and has over 30 years of experience in ground-, aircraft-, and space-based lidar. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1993 at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where he conducted mesospheric studies with sodium lidar.  He joined NASA in 1993, where he has focused on aerosol, cloud, and ocean lidar technology and measurements, including participation in the development of the CALIPSO space mission, the development and science deployment of airborne high-spectral-resolution lidars, and the advancement of technologies for spaceborne high-spectral-resolution lidars

Shoken Ishii
Dr. Shoken Ishii obtained his PhD in the Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University(Nagoya, Japan) in 2001.  He joined the Communications Research Laboratory (previous institute of National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)) of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications as a post-doctoral researcher in 2000.  He joined the NICT in 2005.  He was a visiting researcher of NASA Langley Research Center in 2014.  His research over the past two decades has focused on the development of coherent lidars for wind and CO2 measurements, experimental observations and analysis of wind and CO2, developments of an eye-safe laser and its related electric instruments, simulations for space-based lidar.  He joined the Tokyo Metropolitan University as a professor of the Faculty of System Design in 2020.  He leads the Aerospace Fundamental Sensing Laboratory focusing on the optical sensing and optical communication. He is a member of the International Committee for Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS), the director of the Laser Radar Society of Japan (LRSJ), and advisory board member of the coherent laser radar conference (CLRC)

Lucia Mona
Dr. Lucia Mona is a researcher at the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). Her work has focused in particular on the exploitation of EARLINET database for comparison/integration with other ground-based and satellite measurements and models, and on model evaluation/integration for long-range transport studies. Dr. Mona is responsible for the ARES- ACTRIS DC unit (Aerosol remote Sensing). She is the ACTRIS-A CAMS21b Project Manager. Dr. Mona is Pilot leader in E-shape H2020 project for the “EO4D_ASH - EO Data for Detection, Discrimination and Distribution (4D) of volcanic ash”, and is involved in several H2020 international projects (e.g., ACTRIS IMP, CAMS, PON, ENVRI FAIR, E-shape, DustClim-ERA4CS). She is a member of the WMO SDS-WAS (Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System)Regional Steering Group, and ex-officio member of the WMO Scientific Advisory Group for Aerosol.

Fred Moshary
Fred Moshary is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY) and on the Doctoral Faculty of Earth and Environmental Science program at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He joined the City College of New York in 1992.  His research has focused on sensors, sensor networks, and remote sensing techniques, technologies, and application.  He is currently working on active and passive remote sensing of the atmosphere with applications to atmospheric dynamics and air quality.  He leads CCNY’s Optical Remote Sensing Laboratory, and is the Director of the NOAA Cooperative Science Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies (NOAA CESSRST).  He is a member of the International Coordinating Group for Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS) since 2017 and  serves as the president of ICLAS since 2022.

Alexandros Papayannis
Dr. Alex. Papayannis graduated from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) as Dipl. Electrical Engineer (1984). He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Physics and Remote Sensing, from the University of Paris 7 (France), 1989. He joined NTUA in 1990, where he is actually full Professor. Since 2023, he is also Visiting Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). His research interests include the laser remote sensing of the atmosphere, the technology and physics of lasers, atmospheric optics–physics of the atmosphere– environmental physics-laser spectroscopy and air pollution. In the last two decades he works on the detection of the aerosol optical, microphysical and bio-physical properties, as well as on the detection of ozone and water vapour, using the Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) and the Raman techniques. He is actually Head of the Laser Remote Sensing Unit and Director of the Laboratory of Optoelectronics, Lasers and their Applications (NTUA). He has served as President of the International Coordination Group for Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS) and Member of the International Radiation Commission (IRC) (2015-2022). He was President of the Organizing and Scientific Committee of the 26th ILRC Conference, held in Greece (2012)

Krishna Rupavatharam
Dr. Krishna Rupavatharam is the Director of Spectrum Lab, a controlled research center at Montana State University.  Krishna obtained his Ph.D in Optical Physics, from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He worked at Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden prior to joining Spectrum Lab. Krishna's research areas include developing applications in microwave signal processing based on S2 technology, coherent lidar based sensing and imaging, and quantum communications and networking. Krishna has authored more than 100 technical papers published in refereed journals and proceedings and has multiple patents in microwave photonics and coherent lidar. Krishna has been a consultant for several photonics companies and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Montana Photonics Industry Alliance. He is also serves as a member of the NASA NESC Technical Discipline Team.