Calibrations and Wind Observations of an Airborne Direct Detection Wind Lidar Supporting ESA's Aeolus Mission
Uwe Marksteiner,Christian Lemmerz,Oliver Lux,Stephan Rahm,Andreas Schäfler,Benjamin Witschas,Oliver Reitebuch +6 more
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TLDR
A detailed description of the analysis of wind measurement data gathered during the two campaigns is provided, introducing a dedicated aerial interpolation algorithm that takes into account the different resolution grids of the two LiDAR systems.Abstract:
The Aeolus satellite mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) has brought the first wind LiDAR to space to satisfy the long-existing need for global wind profile observations. Until the successful launch on 22 August 2018, pre-launch campaign activities supported the validation of the measurement principle, the instrument calibration, and the optimization of retrieval algorithms. Therefore, an airborne prototype instrument has been developed, the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D), with ALADIN being the Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument of Aeolus. Two airborne campaigns were conducted over Greenland, Iceland and the Atlantic Ocean in September 2009 and May 2015, employing the A2D as the first worldwide airborne direct-detection Doppler Wind LiDAR (DWL) and a well-established coherent 2-µm wind LiDAR. Both wind LiDAR instruments were operated on the same aircraft measuring Mie backscatter from aerosols and clouds as well as Rayleigh backscatter from molecules in parallel. This paper particularly focuses on the instrument response calibration method of the A2D and its importance for accurate wind retrieval results. We provide a detailed description of the analysis of wind measurement data gathered during the two campaigns, introducing a dedicated aerial interpolation algorithm that takes into account the different resolution grids of the two LiDAR systems. A statistical comparison of line-of-sight (LOS) winds for the campaign in 2015 yielded estimations of the systematic and random (mean absolute deviation) errors of A2D observations of about 0.7 m/s and 2.1 m/s, respectively, for the Rayleigh, and 0.05 m/s and 2.3 m/s, respectively, for the Mie channel. In view of the launch of Aeolus, differences between the A2D and the satellite mission are highlighted along the way, identifying the particular assets and drawbacks.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
First validation of Aeolus wind observations by airborne Doppler wind lidar measurements
Benjamin Witschas,Christian Lemmerz,Alexander Geiß,Oliver Lux,Uwe Marksteiner,Stephan Rahm,Oliver Reitebuch,Fabian Weiler +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the first ever wind lidar in space developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) has been providing profiles of the component of the wind vector along the instrument's line of sight (LOS) on a global scale.
Journal ArticleDOI
Initial Assessment of the Performance of the First Wind Lidar in Space on Aeolus
Oliver Reitebuch,Christian Lemmerz,Oliver Lux,Uwe Marksteiner,Stephan Rahm,Fabian Weiler,Benjamin Witschas,Markus Meringer,Karsten Schmidt,Dorit Huber,Ines Nikolaus,Alexander Geiss,Michael Vaughan,Alain Dabas,Thomas Flament,Hugo Stieglitz,Lars Isaksen,Michael Rennie,Jos de Kloe,Gert-Jan Marseille,Ad Stoffelen,Denny Wernham,Thomas Kanitz,Anne-Grete Straume,Thorsten Fehr,Jonas von Bismarck,Rune Floberghagen,Tommaso Parrinello +27 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the first ever Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) instrument in space, ALADIN contributes to the improvement in numerical weather prediction (NWP) by measuring one component of the horizontal wind vector.
Journal ArticleDOI
Intercomparison of wind observations from the European Space Agency's Aeolus satellite mission and the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator
Oliver Lux,Christian Lemmerz,Fabian Weiler,Uwe Marksteiner,Benjamin Witschas,Stephan Rahm,Alexander Geiß,Oliver Reitebuch +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared the performance of the A2D wind lidar with the European Space Agency's wind data in the Troposphere with respect to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model.
Journal ArticleDOI
Technical note: First comparison of wind observations from ESA's satellite mission Aeolus and ground-based radar wind profiler network of China
Jianping Guo,Boming Liu,Wei Gong,Lijuan Shi,Yong Zhang,Yingying Ma,Jian Zhang,Tianmeng Chen,Kaixu Bai,Ad Stoffelen,Gerrit de Leeuw,Xiaofeng Xu +11 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the Mie-cloudy and Rayleigh-clear wind products from Aeolus measurements are validated against wind observations from the radar wind profiler (RWP) network in China.
Journal ArticleDOI
Observation of jet stream winds during NAWDEX and characterization of systematic meteorological analysis errors
Andreas Schäfler,Ben Harvey,John Methven,James D. Doyle,Stephan Rahm,Oliver Reitebuch,Fabian Weiler,Benjamin Witschas +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used high-resolution observations of the North Atlantic jet stream with high vertical resolution to explore the structure of the jet stream, including the sharpness of vertical wind shear changes across the tropopause and the wind speed.
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