Lidar Compass: A Comparative Assessment Study of Doppler Wind Lidar Technologies

As 3D Winds remains the biggest unmet observation need in numerical weather forecasting, organizations around the globe are working to understand the potential impact of various types of measurements on forecast skill, and to understand value of the measurements, especially within current budget constraints. In addition to conventional, operationally-assimilated observations, additional wind observations being considered include Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL, e.g., like that demonstrated on ESA’s Aeolus), Atmospheric Motion Vector (AMV) winds from satellite imagery, and 3D-AMVs from temporally separated IR or microwave sounding systems.

Satellite imagery, and IR and microwave sounder technologies have been demonstrated in space for decades, enabling continuous optimization of the technologies, retrievals, and data assimilation techniques, and reduction in system size and cost. Doppler wind lidar, on the other hand, has just under 5 years of history in space, with a single instrument on ESA’s groundbreaking Aeolus mission providing wind data operationally assimilated at international NWP centers while on orbit. Like IR and/or microwave sounders that vary widely in technological approaches, signal bands, and architectures, Doppler wind lidars can be built using a number of different wavelengths and technological approaches, enabling wind measurements in different parts of the atmosphere with varying performance capability and cost metrics. With funding from the NOAA NESDIS Office of System Architecture and Advanced Planning (OSAAP) Joint Venture Partnership Program, we are currently performing a comparative assessment of measurement performance, technology readiness, mission complexity, and cost risks for a range of Doppler wind lidar (DWL) technologies. In this presentation we will review the work performed in the first year of this study, including (1) results of lidar radiometric performance modeling (uncertainty quantification) for various DWL systems performed using atmospheric optical properties (i.e., aerosol backscatter and extinction) provided by NASA GSFC’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, (2) a summary of technology readiness assessments and heritage for various systems’ components, (3) a review of cost risks and challenges for on-orbit system performance, and (4) a discussion of how DWL observations can help to optimize a future 3D Winds observation system.