Methane optical density measurements with an integrated path differential absorption lidar from an airborne platform.

We report on an airborne demonstration of atmospheric methane (CH) measurements with an Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) lidar using an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) and optical parametric oscillator (OPO) laser transmitter and sensitive avalanche photodiode detector. The lidar measures the atmospheric CH absorption at multiple, discrete wavelengths near 1650.96 nm.