The Aeolus Cal / Val Programme - Calibration and Validation of the Direct-Detection Doppler Wind Lidar exploited by ESA's Aeolus Satellite.
Abstract
The Aeolus Satellite of the European Space Agency, launched in August 2018, represents the culmination of a major development effort by ESA, extending over more than 30 years. Continuous global measurements of the wind from ground level to 30 km has been the objective of this complex and extremely challenging development. Aeolus exploits what is known as "Direct-Detection" to determine Doppler Shift of the light back-scattered from the atmosphere from the powerful pulsed beam at 355 nm emitted by the on-board laser. Direct-Detection provides the capability to exploit both Rayleigh Scatter from omni-present atmospheric molecules, in addition to Mie Scatter from Aerosols, wherever they are present. The "Direct-Detection" Doppler Lidar technique deployed by Aeolus is relatively poorly known to the global community. As the result, ESA initiated the "Aeolus Cal / Val Programme", a major large-scale, multi-technique programme, to ensure that the novel space-borne wind measurements could be both calibrated and validated by detailed inter-comparison with well-known and generally-accepted meteorological techniques for atmospheric wind measurement. In addition, the Aeolus global winds have been tested exhaustively by ECMWF and collaborating organisations to investigate the effect of the new wind data on Forecasting "Truth". Some early results from the Aeolus Cal / Val Programme are presented and discussed.
- Publication:
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43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 28 January - 4 February
- Pub Date:
- January 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021cosp...43E.551R