Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) is an airborne autonomous DIfferential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system developed to measure water vapor, aerosol, and cloud profiles. These measurements can be used in various atmospheric investigations, including studies of air mass modification, latent heat flux, the water vapor component of the hydrologic cycle, and atmospheric transport using water vapor as a tracer of atmospheric motions. The simultaneous measurement of aerosol and cloud distributions can provide important information on atmospheric structure and transport, and many meteorological parameters can also be inferred from these data. |