Results from the ATHENA-OAWL Venture Tech Airborne Mission

The Atmospheric Transport, Hurricanes and Extratropical Numerical weather prediction using the Optical Autocovariance Wind Lidar (ATHENA-OAWL) is a mission concept proposed as an Earth Venture mission for space based wind profile measurements. An Airborne demonstrator for the ATHENA-OAWL system, the Green OAWL (GrOAWL) which operates at 532 nm was deployed aboard the NASA WB-57 aircraft in May/June 2016. The instrument makes simultaneous measurements at two azimuthally orthogonal line-of-sight to provide u and v components of the horizontal winds.

Here we will give a brief overview of the campaign and focus on the validation efforts. We will compare GrOAWL measured wind profiles with winds from High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) dropsondes released from the aircraft and High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model. Sensitivity of the instrument during the flights will be explored based on aerosol profiles from CALIPSO and GEOS-5 model and contrasted against the instrument performance in the lab. In addition, effects of various cloud cover on the GrOAWL wind measurement accuracy will also be addressed.