LIDAR Data Assimilation System for Upper Troposphere and Stratosphere

We will present a data assimilation system (DAS) for a LIDAR instrument being developed to provide measurements of wind, temperature, and density throughout the troposphere and stratosphere, up to approximately 80 km altitude. The DAS is composed of 1) an Ensemble Adjustment Kalman Filter provided by the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART); and 2) the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), each publicly available from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. We will briefly describe the ensemble data assimilation method, the LIDAR observations, the LIDAR observation operator interface to DART, and provide examples of the data impact from and sensitivity to the LIDAR observations.