Impact Assessment of a Doppler Wind Lidar in Space on Atmospheric Analyses and Numerical Weather Prediction

Wind profiles from space would help to fill in data sparse areas over the oceans, the tropics, and the southern hemisphere. ESA has conducted a phase A study for the Earth Explorer Atmospheric Dynamics Mission (ADM). A polar satellite with a Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) on board is proposed for this mission and which is described in this session by Ingmann. The DWL measures wind profiles in the troposphere and stratosphere up to 26.5 km height. Performance assessment studies have been performed for this system by simulation. In a statistical assessment it is investigated whether the DWL provides sufficient data quality in clear air, but also in cloudy regions. Obviously clouds are good scatterers, but could obstruct lower-lying air masses. We find that even in cloudy regions cloud penetration is sufficient to detect extreme tropospheric wind shear or the areas with large humidity flux in most cases. After the statistical assessment of performance an Observation System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) was performed. This experiment over a two-week period confirms earlier assessments that the ESA ADM will demonstrate the impact of space-borne DWL on atmospheric analyses, used for numerical weather prediction and climate analyses.