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

Soon after its successful launch in August 2018, the spaceborne wind lidar ALADIN (Atmospheric LAser Doppler INstrument) on-board ESA’s Earth Explorer satellite Aeolus has demonstrated to provide atmospheric wind profiles on a global scale. Being 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. The performance of the ALADIN instrument was assessed by a team from ESA, DLR, industry, and NWP centers during the first months of operation. The current knowledge about the main contributors to the random and systematic errors from the instrument will be discussed. First validation results from an airborne campaign with two wind lidars on-board the DLR Falcon aircraft will be shown.

Bibliographic data

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 . Initial Assessment of the Performance of the First Wind Lidar in Space on Aeolus
Journal: EPJ Web of Conferences, Volume: 237, Year: 2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202023701010