The Wyoming Cloud Lidar (WCL), a compact two-channel elastic lidar, was designed to obtain cloud measurements together with the Wyoming Cloud Radar (WCR) on the University of Wyoming King Air and the National Science Foundation/National Center of Atmospheric Research C-130 aircraft. The WCL has been deployed in four field projects under a variety of atmospheric and cloud conditions during the last two years. Throughout these campaigns, it has exhibited the needed reliability for turn-key operation from aircraft. We provide here an overview of the instrument and examples to illustrate the measurements capability of the WCL. Although the WCL as a standalone instrument can provide unique measurements for cloud and boundary layer aerosol studies, the synergy of WCL and WCR measurements coupled with in situ sampling from an aircraft provide a significant step forward in our ability to observe and understand cloud microphysical property evolution.

We developed an airborne compact rotational Raman lidar (CRL) for use on the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) aircraft to obtain two-dimensional (2D) temperature disman tributions. It obtained fine-scale 2D temperature distributions within 3 km below the aircraft for the first time during the PECAN (Plains Elevated Convection At Night) campaign in 2015. The CRL provided nighttime temperature measurements with a random error of <0.5 K within 800 m below aircraft at 45 m vertical and 1000 m horizontal resolution. The temperatures obtained by the CRL and a radiosonde agreed. Along with water vapor and aerosol measurements, the CRL provides critical parameters on the state of the lower atmosphere for a wide range of atmospheric research.

A compact airborne Raman lidar system, which can perform water vapor and aerosol measurements both during nighttime and daytime is described. The system design, setup and the data processing methods are described in the paper. The Raman lidar was tested on University of Wyoming King Air research aircraft (UWKA) during the Wyoming King Air PBL Exploratory Experiment (KAPEE) in 2010. An observation showing clouds, aerosols and a dry line is presented to illustrate the lidar detection capabilities. Comparisons of the water vapor and aerosol measurements using the Raman lidar and other in situ airborne instruments show good agreement.

Although ground-base Raman lidars are widely used for atmospheric observations, the capabilities of airborne Raman lidar is not fully explored. Here we presented two recently developed airborne Raman lidar systems for the studies of atmospheric boundary layer process, aerosols, and clouds. The systems are briefly introduced. Observation examples are presented to illustrate the unique observational capabilities of airborne Raman lidar and their applications for atmospheric process studies.