A review of wind comparison work at the Howard University Beltsville Research Campus

In early 2009 the collection of wind lidar data began with an intercomparison campaign at the Howard University Beltsville Research Campus. During the two-month campaign, data was collected from three wind lidars: the Goddard Lidar Observatory for Winds (GLOW) from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, VALIDAR from the NASA Langley Research Center, and a LEOSPHERE WINDCUBE70. In addition, wind data was also collected from Vaisala RS92 radiosondes and a DeTect RAPTOR DBS-BL/LAP-3000 radar wind profiler, all located at the site. At the conclusion of the two-month campaign, GLOW stayed on site and collected data intermittently until late 2010 providing a dataset that includes comparison with 45 radiosondes and the wind profiler, which operates continuously. After characterizing the errors of each dataset, comparisons were made between them to assess the differences among these various types of measurement technologies.