Spectroscopic measurements of a CO2 absorption line in an open vertical path using an airborne lidar

We use an airborne pulsed integrated path differential absorption lidar to make spectroscopic measurements of the pressure-induced line broadening and line center shift of atmospheric CO2 at the 1572.335 nm absorption line. We measure the absorption lineshape in the vertical column between the aircraft and ground. A comparison of our measured absorption lineshape to calculations based on HITRAN shows excellent agreement with the peak optical depth accurate to within 0.3%. Additionally, we measure changes in the line center position to within 5.2 MHz of calculations, and the absorption linewidth to within 0.6% of calculations.