ÓPTICA PURA Y APLICADA. www.sedoptica.es Opt. Pura Apl. 47 (3) 183-188 (2014) - 183 - © Sociedad Española de Óptica Type: Research Paper / Tipo: Artículo de Investigación Special Section: VII Workshop on Lidar Measurement in Latin-America / Sección Especial: VII Taller de Medidas Lidar en Latino-América Fallback atmosphere models for lidar measurements without corresponding radio-sounding data and modelling of a local atmosphere profile from historic radio-sounding data: Example of the Sao Paulo lidar metropolitan station Riad Bourayou (1,*) , Fabio Juliano Da Silva Lopes (2) , Renata Facundes Da Costa (2) , Patricia Rodrigues Ferrini (2) , Eliane Gonçalves Larroza (2) , Walter Morinobu Nakaema (2) , Gregori Arruda Moreira (2) , Felipe Vasconcelos Araujo (2) , Bruno Poluha (2) , Eduardo Landulfo (2) 1. Independent researcher, www.bourayou.com , Weichselplatz 8, 12045 Berlin, Germany. 2. Laser Environmental Applications, Center for Lasers and Applications, Nuclear and Energy Institute, Av. Prof Lineu Prestes 2242, Cidade Universitária 05508-000 São Paulo, Brazil. (*) Email: riad@bourayou.com Received / Recibido: 15/02/2014. Revised / Revisado: 05/06/2014. Accepted / Aceptado: 26/06/2014. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7149/OPA.47.3.183 ABSTRACT: We compare the performance of some available atmospheric models for the atmosphere of Sao Paulo (Brazil) to be used in case of absence of radio-sounding data for the given day. We developed our own model (SPm) from historic radio-sounding data in order to create a local model. By performing inversions of lidar signals (distributed over a year), we could benchmark the performance of the models against radio-sounding data. SPm and ISA-15N show the smallest deviation and represent, therefore, the best fallback models for this southern latitude. Key words: Lidar, Atmospheric Modelling, Temperature Profile, Aerosol Extinction. REFERENCES AND LINKS / REFERENCIAS Y ENLACES [1]. U.S. Standard Atmosphere, NASA document NASA-TM-X-74335 (1976). [2] E. Thorin, Design of Algorithms to Extract Atmospheric Aerosol Extinction from Raman Lidar Data , M.Sc Thesis, University of Linköpings (2006) [3]. D. J. Diston, Computational Modelling and Simulation of Aircraft and the Environment , John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK(2009). DOI [4]. http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html , Station Campo do Marte SBMT. [5]. H. Bai, A New Resampling Method to Improve Quality of Research with Small Samples ”, PhD Thesis, Univ. of Cincinnati (2006). [6]. B. E. Wampold, C. J. Drew, Theory and Application of Statistics , McGraw-Hill, New York (1990). [7]. C. C Tomkins, “An Introduction to Non-parametric Statistics for Health Scientists”, University of Alberta Health Sciences Journal 3 (1), 20-21 (2006). [8]. S. Siegel, N. J. Castellan, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences , McGraw-Hill, New York (1988). 1. Introduction In the absence of radio-sounding data (RWS), the inversion of the lidar signal can be done using modelled atmosphere profiles. Many available models, for instance US1976 [1], an early Earlinet Atmosphere [2] and ISA [3], were designed for the northern hemisphere of the globe and therefore their application could be challenging when dealing with LaLiNet (Latin- American Lidar Network) stations. A comparison