The use of cicular polarization in Space-based lidar systems: Considerations for the ErathCARE lidar

The proposed Earth Clouds And Radiation Explorer (Earth-CARE) satellite mission is at joint European and Japanese program. The EarthCARE mission is focused on investigating the interactions between clouds, aerosol and long and short-wave atmospheric radiation. The proposed platform instruments include a lidar and a cloud profiling radar along with various passive sensors. The use of circular polarization is being considered for the EarthCARE lidar. This consideration
may turn out to have particular advantages with regards to the ability to discriminate water and ice layers on the basis of the depolarized return. In particular, for EarthCARE the use of circular depolarization would reduce the amount of depolarization signal induced by multiplescattering
processes in water clouds.