METHOD FOR POLARIZING LASER PROBING OF CRYSTAL CLOUDS Russian patent published in 2023 - IPC G01W1/00 G01N21/21 

FIELD: meteorological observations.

SUBSTANCE: method consists in sending a laser beam of radiation linearly polarized in the vertical plane into the atmosphere, receiving and recording lidar signals backscattered by the cloud in two mutually orthogonal planes, one of which coincides with the plane of polarization of the probing radiation. In this case, the radiation polarization plane is set in the initial zero azimuth direction to the north, and cloud sounding is started by deflecting the laser beam from the vertical until the specular reflection lidar signal disappears. Then azimuthal conical scanning is carried out under this zenith angle with fixing the value of azimuthal angles at which the polarized signal successively reaches maximum and minimum values. Based on the totality of these azimuth angles, the direction of orientation of the crystalline particles of the clouds is judged.

EFFECT: providing the possibility of remote detection of areas with a predominant orientation of crystalline particles in the cloud, as well as determining the azimuth angle of the direction of this orientation.

1 cl, 1 dwg