ESA’s spaceborne lidar mission ADM-Aeolus; project status and preparations for launch

Straume, Anne Grete; Elfving, Anders; Wernham, Denny; Bruin, Frank de; Kanitz, Thomas; Schuettemeyer, Dirk; Bismarck, Jonas von; Buscaglione, F.; Lecrenier, Olivier; McGoldrick, Phil

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201817604007

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The horizontal resolution of the wind observations is about 90 km for the Rayleigh channel and about 10-15 km for the Mie channel. A detailed description of the instrument design and a demonstration of the measurement concept are introduced in, for example, Reitebuch et al (2009), Reitebuch (2012), Straume et al (2018), ESA (2008 and Marksteiner (2013).…”

Section: Aladinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, due to the lack of wind profiles over ocean areas from the radiosonde network and wind observations only at a specific flight altitude (around 10-12 km about ground level) in aircraft measurements, a first-ever spaceborne direct-detection wind lidar, Aeolus, which is capable of providing the globally high spatial and temporal vertical wind profiles, was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the framework of the Atmospheric Dynamics Mission (Stoffelen et al, 2005;ESA, 1999;Reitebuch, 2012). On 22 August 2018, Aeolus was successfully launched into its sun-synchronous orbit at a height of 320 km (Kanitz et al, 2018;Straume et al, 2018;Reitebuch et al, 2020). A quasi-global coverage is achieved daily (∼ 16 orbits per day), and the orbit repeat cycle is 7 d (111 orbits).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inter-comparison of wind measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer and the lower troposphere with Aeolus and a ground-based coherent Doppler lidar network over China

Sun

Dai

et al. 2022

Atmos. Meas. Tech.

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Abstract. After the successful launch of Aeolus, which is the first spaceborne wind lidar developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), on 22 August 2018, we deployed several ground-based coherent Doppler wind lidars (CDLs) to verify the wind observations from Aeolus. By the simultaneous wind measurements with CDLs at 17 stations over China, the Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy horizontal-line-of-sight (HLOS) wind velocities from Aeolus in the atmospheric boundary layer and the lower troposphere are compared with those from CDLs. To ensure the quality of the measurement data from CDLs and Aeolus, strict quality controls are applied in this study. Overall, 52 simultaneous Mie-cloudy comparison pairs and 387 Rayleigh-clear comparison pairs from this campaign are acquired. All of the Aeolus-produced Level 2B (L2B) Mie-cloudy HLOS wind and Rayleigh-clear HLOS wind and CDL-produced HLOS wind are compared individually. For the inter-comparison result of Mie-cloudy HLOS wind and CDL-produced HLOS wind, the correlation coefficient, the standard deviation, the scaled mean absolute deviation (MAD) and the bias are 0.83, 3.15 m s−1, 2.64 m s−1 and −0.25 m s−1, respectively, while the y=ax slope, the y=ax+b slope and the y=ax+b intercept are 0.93, 0.92 and −0.33 m s−1. For the Rayleigh-clear HLOS wind, the correlation coefficient, the standard deviation, the scaled MAD and the bias are 0.62, 7.07 m s−1, 5.77 m s−1 and −1.15 m s−1, respectively, while the y=ax slope, the y=ax+b slope and the y=ax+b intercept are 1.00, 0.96 and −1.2 m s−1. It is found that the standard deviation, the scaled MAD and the bias on ascending tracks are lower than those on descending tracks. Moreover, to evaluate the accuracy of Aeolus HLOS wind measurements under different product baselines, the Aeolus L2B Mie-cloudy HLOS wind data and L2B Rayleigh-clear HLOS wind data under Baselines 07 and 08, Baselines 09 and 10, and Baseline 11 are compared against the CDL-retrieved HLOS wind data separately. From the comparison results, marked misfits between the wind data from Aeolus Baselines 07 and 08 and wind data from CDLs in the atmospheric boundary layer and the lower troposphere are found. With the continuous calibration and validation and product processor updates, the performances of Aeolus wind measurements under Baselines 09 and 10 and Baseline 11 are improved significantly. Considering the influence of turbulence and convection in the atmospheric boundary layers and the lower troposphere, higher values for the vertical velocity are common in this region. Hence, as a special note, the vertical velocity could impact the HLOS wind velocity retrieval from Aeolus.

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Section: Aladinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter-comparison of wind measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer and the lower troposphere with Aeolus and a ground-based coherent Doppler lidar network over China

Sun

Dai

et al. 2022

Atmos. Meas. Tech.

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“…In this section, the Aeolus satellite and its instrument ALADIN are briefly introduced, including its measurement procedure and resulting data products. For more information regarding these topics, please refer to ESA (1999), Reitebuch (2012), Reitebuch et al (2019), Kanitz et al (2019) and Straume et al (2018Straume et al ( , 2019, for example.…”

Section: The Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument (Aladin) On Board Aeolusmentioning

confidence: 99%

First validation of Aeolus wind observations by airborne Doppler wind lidar measurements

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Soon after the launch of Aeolus on 22 August 2018, 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. In order to validate the quality of Aeolus wind observations, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., DLR) recently performed two airborne campaigns over central Europe deploying two different Doppler wind lidars (DWLs) on board the DLR Falcon aircraft. The first campaign – WindVal III – was conducted from 5 November 2018 until 5 December 2018 and thus still within the commissioning phase of the Aeolus mission. The second campaign – AVATARE (Aeolus Validation Through Airborne Lidars in Europe) – was performed from 6 May 2019 until 6 June 2019. Both campaigns were flown out of the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, during the evening hours for probing the ascending orbits. All together, 10 satellite underflights with 19 flight legs covering more than 7500 km of Aeolus swaths were performed and used to validate the early-stage wind data product of Aeolus by means of collocated airborne wind lidar observations for the first time. For both campaign data sets, the statistical comparison of Aeolus horizontal line-of-sight (HLOS) observations and the corresponding wind observations of the reference lidar (2 µm DWL) on board the Falcon aircraft shows enhanced systematic and random errors compared with the bias and precision requirements defined for Aeolus. In particular, the systematic errors are determined to be 2.1 m s−1 (Rayleigh) and 2.3 m s−1 (Mie) for WindVal III and −4.6 m s−1 (Rayleigh) and −0.2 m s−1 (Mie) for AVATARE. The corresponding random errors are determined to be 3.9 m s−1 (Rayleigh) and 2.0 m s−1 (Mie) for WindVal III and 4.3 m s−1 (Rayleigh) and 2.0 m s−1 (Mie) for AVATARE. The Aeolus observations used here were acquired in an altitude range up to 10 km and have mainly a vertical resolution of 1 km (Rayleigh) and 0.5 to 1.0 km (Mie) and a horizontal resolution of 90 km (Rayleigh) and down to 10 km (Mie). Potential reasons for those errors are analyzed and discussed.

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“…Further information about the Aeolus satellite, the ALADIN instrument and the retrieval algorithms can be found in (e.g., ESA, 1999;Reitebuch, 2012;Kanitz et al, 2019;Straume et al, 2018Straume et al, , 2020.…”

Section: Aeolus and Aladinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of the Aeolus L2B wind product with airborne wind lidar measurements in the polar North Atlantic region and in the tropics

Witschas

Lemmerz

Geiß³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. During the first three years of European Space Agency’s Aeolus mission, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR) performed four airborne campaigns deploying two different Doppler wind lidars (DWL) on-board the DLR Falcon aircraft, aiming to validate the quality of the recent Aeolus Level 2B (L2B) wind data product (processor baseline 11 and 12). The first two campaigns, WindVal III (Nov/Dec 2018) and AVATAR-E (Aeolus Validation Through Airborne Lidars in Europe, May/Jun 2019) were conducted in Europe and provided first insights in the data quality at the beginning of the mission phase. The two later campaigns, AVATAR-I (Aeolus Validation Through Airborne Lidars in Iceland) and AVATAR-T (Aeolus Validation Through Airborne Lidars in the Tropics), were performed in regions of particular interest for the Aeolus validation: AVATAR-I was conducted from Keflavik, Iceland between 9 September and 1 October 2019 to sample the high wind speeds in the vicinity of the polar jet stream. AVATAR-T was carried out from Sal, Cape Verde between 6 September and 28 September 2021 to measure winds in the Saharan dust-laden African easterly jet. Altogether, 10 Aeolus underflights were performed during AVATAR-I and 11 underflights during AVATAR-T, covering about 8000 km and 11000 km along the Aeolus measurement track, respectively. Based on these collocated measurements, statistical comparisons of Aeolus data with the reference lidar (2-µm DWL) as well as with in-situ measurements by the Falcon were performed to determine the systematic and random error of Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy winds that are contained in the Aeolus L2B product. It is demonstrated that the systematic error almost fulfills the mission requirement of being below 0.7 m s-1 for both Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy winds. The random error is shown to vary between 5.5 m s-1 and 7.1 m s-1 for Rayleigh-clear winds and is thus larger than specified (2.5 m s-1), whereas it is close to the specifications for Mie-cloudy winds (2.7 to 2.9 m s-1). In addition, the dependency of the systematic and random errors on the actual wind speed, the geolocation, the scattering ratio and the time difference between 2-µm DWL observation and satellite overflight is investigated and discussed. Thus, this work contributes to the characterization of the Aeolus data quality in different meteorological situations and allows to investigate wind retrieval algorithm improvements for reprocessed Aeolus data sets.

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ESA’s spaceborne lidar mission ADM-Aeolus; project status and preparations for launch

Cited by 15 publications

References 3 publications

Inter-comparison of wind measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer and the lower troposphere with Aeolus and a ground-based coherent Doppler lidar network over China

Inter-comparison of wind measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer and the lower troposphere with Aeolus and a ground-based coherent Doppler lidar network over China

First validation of Aeolus wind observations by airborne Doppler wind lidar measurements

Validation of the Aeolus L2B wind product with airborne wind lidar measurements in the polar North Atlantic region and in the tropics

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