Evaluation of Aeolus L2B wind product with wind profiling radar measurements and numerical weather prediction model equivalents over Australia
<p>Carrying a laser Doppler instrument, the Aeolus satellite was launched in 2018, becoming the first mission for atmospheric wind profile measurements from space. Before utilizing the Aeolus winds for different applications, evaluating their data quality is essential. With the help of ground-...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2022-07-01
|
| Series: | Atmospheric Measurement Techniques |
| Online Access: | https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/15/4107/2022/amt-15-4107-2022.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>Carrying a laser Doppler instrument, the Aeolus satellite
was launched in 2018, becoming the first mission for atmospheric wind
profile measurements from space. Before utilizing the Aeolus winds for
different applications, evaluating their data quality is essential. With the help of ground-based wind profiling radar measurements and the European
Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model equivalents, this
study quantifies the error characteristics of Aeolus L2B (baseline-11) near-real-time horizontal line-of-sight winds across Australia during October
2020–March 2021 by using both inter-comparison and triple collocation
analysis. The results of the inter-comparison analysis indicate that both
Rayleigh-clear winds and Mie-cloudy winds are in good agreement with the
ground-based radar measurements with overall absolute mean biases smaller
than 0.7 m s<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span> and correlation coefficients larger than or equal to
0.9. Moreover, assuming the radar measurements as the reference data set,
Mie-cloudy winds are shown to be more precise than Rayleigh-clear winds with an overall random error of 4.14 and 5.81 m s<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span>,
respectively. Similar results were also found from triple collocation
analysis, with error standard deviations of 5.61 and 3.50 m s<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span> for Rayleigh-clear winds and Mie-cloudy winds. In addition, the
Mie channel is shown to be more capable of capturing the wind in the
planetary boundary layer (<span class="inline-formula"><</span> 1500 m). The findings of this study
demonstrate the good performance of space-borne Doppler lidar for wind
profiling and provide valuable information for data assimilation in
numerical weather prediction.</p> |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1867-1381 1867-8548 |