Above: Trailers housing the Raman-shifted Eye-safe Aerosol Lidar are located at the University Farm

The primary laser inside the lidar during an instant when the flash-lamps are discharging
—hence the purple glow. Photo by Shane Mayor.

Eye-safe Lidar Receives Funding and Finds Home in Chico

Shane D. Mayor, PhD in atmospheric and oceanic sciences, has brought the Raman-shifted Eye-safe Aerosol Lidar (REAL) from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, to a site at the University Farm. Mayor is a research professor in the departments of Geosciences and Physics.

The move in August of 2008 was precipitated by the previous administration’s limited federal funding for science. Suddenly out of a job, Mayor followed his wife, Anna Petrova-Mayor, to CSU, Chico with the REAL in tow. Dr. Petrova-Mayor, a native of Bulgaria, teaches courses in optics and lasers for the Department of Physics. Now, Mayor said, he is regaining his stride to conduct research and development on topics that he is passionate about.

Mayor recently received a three-year, $554,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Physical and Dynamic Meteorology Program to extract wind information from the images the REAL produces. The funding provides Dr. Mayor with part-time salary support and sufficient funding for a postdoctoral associate, a graduate student, and an undergraduate assistant. Mayor started working on the NSF project on Sept. 1 and hopes to build a small but highly effective research team.

Mayor, formerly a scientist at NCAR, uses lidar to study the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). The ABL is the lowest part of the atmosphere and is directly influenced by contact with the earth’s surface. The ABL is important because it controls the vertical fluxes of heat, momentum, trace gases, and pollutants from the surface of the earth to the free atmosphere above it. The ABL also controls the horizontal transport of pollutants that affect air quality, and the moisture that affects storm formation.

The REAL occupies two white shipping containers on a 40-foot long trailer. It is mobile so that it can be deployed widely for field studies. During his first year at Chico State, Mayor moved the instrument, consisting of optics and lasers, from one container to another. Dr. Petrova-Mayor and senior physics major Terry McAfee assisted in the process. The move took advantage of the features of the new container—a fieldable optical laboratory.

“Moving the instrument 1,174 miles from Boulder to Chico was not unusual,” said Mayor. “The REAL has been across the entire country for several previous research projects.” The move to Chico was a successful collaboration of NSF, NCAR, the CSU, Chico Research Foundation, the College of Natural Sciences, and the College of Agriculture.

Shane Mayor

Mayor currently teaches PHYS 499 (independent study) for students interested in learning about lidar and atmospheric physics. For example, McAfee received credit for learning the optical components and then planning and carefully moving them to the new laboratory. The lidar system was made functional again in June 2009 when two engineers from NCAR visited to make final adjustments. This semester Zeb Wheeler, a senior computer science major, is taking PHYS 499 with Mayor. Wheeler is helping Mayor develop software to extract winds from the lidar data. Mayor hopes to involve students from other majors, especially engineering, in future projects with the lidar. One goal is to make the lidar more automated and remotely controllable.

Mayor is also collaborating with Randy Senock, Environmental Sciences. With the help of McAfee, the two installed a 50-foot tower supporting weather instruments and an aerosol particle sensor at the University Farm. Among the first tasks is to experimentally determine the sensitivity of the lidar to changes in aerosol particle size distribution and concentration. Aerosols, or particulate matter, are a large factor in air quality and play a major role in climate by altering the atmospheric radiation budget. Mayor hopes to use the lidar in studies of air quality and climate science in the future.

For more information, http://phys.csuchico.edu/lidar.

—Kathleen McPartland, Public Affairs and Publications