Monte Carlo Simulation of Wide-Angle Lidar Signals

The paper deals with Monte Carlo modeling of spatiotemporal signals of wide-angle lidars for probing atmospheric clouds. Using computational experiments, we study the features of lidar signals for monostatic and bistatic sensing schemes which make it possible to analyze the optical and microphysical properties of the cloud environment. When probing thin cloud layers, the lidar signal looks like an expanding and attenuating light ring. It is shown that for a bistatic scheme a second ring, which appears for a short time inside the main one, is characteristic of the lidar signal.