HAWC-OAWL: HSRL for Aerosols, Winds, and Clouds Using Optical Autocovariance Wind Lidar

Clouds are still the largest source of climate sensitivity uncertainty in climate models. Collocated measurements of aerosols and winds help improve cloud representation in cloud microphysics studies and global climate models (GCMs). Recent modeling studies and field programs have shed new light on the strong and varied dynamical and microphysical interactions between clouds, aerosols (CCN) and wind fields. Collocated cloud, aerosol and wind observations are needed to further improve parameterization approaches to modeling these relationships on mesoscale and global scales. HAWC-OAWL, a recently awarded NASA ESTO Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), will build on Ball Aerospace's existing OAWL (wind lidar) to enable co-located and simultaneous Earth science measurements of winds and aerosols with a focus on the study of how aerosols and winds affect cloud radiative forcing. The program will also advance the instrument technology for future space-based global Earth system studies. We will present an outline of the proposed effort and provide examples of the wind and aerosol measurements already being made with the OAWL system.