Differential absorption lidar (DIAL) is an excellent technology for atmospheric CO2 detection. However, the accuracy and stability of a transmitted on-line wavelength are strictly required in a DIAL system. The fluctuation of a tunable pulsed laser system is relatively more serious than that of other laser sources, and this condition leads to a large measurement error for the lidar signal. These concerns pose a significant challenge in on-line wavelength calibration. This study proposes an alternative method based on wavelet modulus maxima for the accurate on-line wavelength calibration of a pulsed laser. Because of the different propagation characteristics of the wavelet transform modulus maxima between signal and noise, the singularities of a signal can be obtained by detection of the local modulus maxima in the wavelet transform maximum at fine scales. Simulated analysis shows that the method is more accurate than the general method such as quintic polynomial fitting and can steadily maintain high calibration precision at different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Last, 16 groups of real experiments were conducted to verify the simulated analysis, which shows that the proposed method is an alternative for accurately calibrating an on-line wavelength. In addition, the proposed method is able to suppress noises in the process of wavelength calibration, which gives it an advantage in accurate on-line wavelength calibration with a low SNR.Research Funds for the Central Universities (2042015kf0015).

Accurately measuring the differential molecular absorption cross section is the key to obtaining a high-precision concentration of atmospheric trace gases in a differential absorption lidar (DIAL) system. However, the CO₂ absorption line is meticulous at 1.6 μm, easily translating and broadening because of the change of temperature and pressure. Hence, measuring the vertical profile of atmospheric temperature and pressure to calculate the vertical profile of the CO₂ weight parameter is necessary. In general, measuring atmospheric temperature and pressure has a certain amount of uncertainty. Therefore, this study proposes the concept of a balanced on-line wavelength, where the differential molecular absorption cross section is larger and the CO₂ weight parameter is insensitive to the uncertainty of atmospheric temperature and pressure. In this study, we analyzed the influence of uncertainty on the CO₂ weight parameter at every preselected wavelength, as well as determined an appropriate wavelength near one of the absorption peaks. Our result shows that 1572.023 nm should be one of the appropriate balanced online wavelengths. The measurement errors of the mixing ratio of CO₂ molecule in this wavelength are only 0.23% and 0.25% and are caused by 1 K temperature error and 1 hPa pressure error, respectively. This achievement of a balanced on-line wavelength will not only depress the requirement of the laser’s frequency stabilization but also the demand for measurement precision of the atmospheric temperature and pressure profile. Furthermore, this study can achieve the exact measurement of the vertical profile of atmospheric CO₂ based on an independent differential absorption laser.