Airborne Doppler Wind Lidar Measurements during the NASA Convective Processes Experiment (CPEX)

During 25 May – 24 June 2017, NASA carried out an airborne field experiment from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The science objectives of this Convective Processes EXperiment (CPEX) were: 1. Improve understanding of convective processes including cloud dynamics, downdrafts, cold pools and thermodynamics during initiation, growth, and dissipation, 2. Obtain a comprehensive set of observations, especially from a Doppler wind lidar, in the vicinity of scattered and organized deep convection in all phases of the convective life cycle, 3. Improve model representation of convective and boundary layer processes over the tropical oceans using a cloud-resolving, fully coupled atmosphere-ocean model, and 4. Improve model assimilation of the wind, temperature and humidity profiles from the wind lidar and dropsondes into numerical weather prediction models.

The CPEX payload consisted of a Doppler Aerosol WiNd lidar (DAWN), a dual frequency Airborne Precipitation Radar (APR-2), three microwave radiometers with channels near 50, 118 and 183GHz and dropsondes. CPEX conducted a total of sixteen NASA DC-8 flight missions from 27 May-24 June. The 16 missions covered a wide range of weather conditions from clear and calm wind, isolated convective cloud systems, to Tropical Storm Cindy (2017).

A few preliminary results from CPEX will be reported and measurements obtained from DAWN will be covered in some detail to make the case for a potential Doppler wind lidar satellite instrument.