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The diel vertical variations of chlorophyll a (Chl-a) concentration are thought of primarily as an external manifestation of regulating phytoplankton's biomass, which is essential for dynamically estimating the biogeochemical cycle in inland waters. However, information on these variations is limited due to insufficient measurements. Undersampled observations lead to delayed responses in phytoplankton assessment, impacting accurate evaluations of carbon export and water quality in dynamic inland waters. Here, we report the first lidar-observed diel vertical variations of inland Chl-a concentration. Strong agreement with r2 of 0.83 and a root mean square relative difference (RMSRD) of 9.0% between the lidar-retrieved and in situ measured Chl-a concentration verified the feasibility of the Mie–fluorescence–Raman lidar (MFRL). An experiment conducted at a fixed observatory demonstrated the lidar-observed diel Chl-a concentration variations. The results showed that diel variations of Chl-a and the formation of subsurface phytoplankton layers were driven by light availability and variations in water temperature. Furthermore, the facilitation from solar radiation-regulated water temperature on the phytoplankton growth rate was revealed by the high correlation between water temperature and Chl-a concentration anomalies. Lidar technology is expected to provide new insights into continuous three-dimension observations and be of great importance in dynamic inland water ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study on the upper ocean is of great significance to the global climate change and carbon cycle. Lidar can be used to effectively detect depth-resolved optical properties of the ocean. However, both theory and experiment of oceanic lidar are limited by complex multiple scattering. Several progresses by Zhejiang University will be illustrated in this paper: 1) a polarized lidar system was developed, and a Monte Carlo model and a radiative transfer model were established (Zhou, et al. remote sensing, 2019; Zhou, et al. Journal of remote sensing, 2019; Xu, et al. and Liu, et al. Journal of remote sensing, 2019); 2) Cross validations are demonstrated to verify the availability of the lidar system and models (Liu, et al. IEEE TGRS, 2019); 3) phase function effects on backscatter and attenuation are studied considering multiple scattering, respectively (Liu, et al. Optics Express, 2019). Oceanic lidar is proven to have great potential in marine studies.

Multiple scattering is an inevitable effect in spaceborne oceanic lidar because of the large footprint size and the high optical density of seawater. The effective attenuation coefficient klidar in oceanic lidar equation, which indicates the influence of the multiple scattering effect on the formation of lidar returns, is an important parameter in the retrieval of inherent optical properties (IOPs) of seawater. In this paper, the nonlinearity of klidar and the relationships between klidar and the IOPs of seawater are investigated by solving the radiative transfer equation with an improved semianalytic Monte Carlo model. klidar is found to decrease exponentially with the increase of depth in homogeneous waters. klidar is given as an exponential function of depth and IOPs of seawater. The results in this paper can help to have a better understanding of the multiple scattering effect of spaceborne lidar and improve the retrieval accuracy of the IOPs of seawater using spaceborne lidar.