Temperature dependence of the Rayleigh Brillouin spectrum linewidth in air and nitrogen

The relation between spontaneous Rayleigh Brillouin (SRB) spectrum linewidth, gas temperature, and pressure are analyzed at the temperature range from 220 to 340 K and the pressure range from 0.1 to 1 bar, covering the stratosphere and troposphere relevant for the Earth’s atmosphere and for atmospheric Lidar missions. Based on the analysis, a model retrieving gas temperature from directly measured linewidth is established and the accuracy limitations are estimated. Furthermore, some experimental data of air and nitrogen are used to verify the accuracy of the model. As the results show, the retrieved temperature shows good agreement with the reference temperature, and the absolute difference is less than 3 K, which indicates that this method provides a fruitful tool in satellite retrieval to extract the gaseous properties of atmospheres on-line by directly measuring the SRB spectrum linewidth.