The Aeolus mission objectives are to improve numerical weather prediction (NWP) and enhance the understanding and modeling of atmospheric dynamics on global and regional scale. Given the first ...successes of Aeolus in NWP, it is time to look forward to future vertical wind profiling capability to fulfill the rolling requirements in operational meteorology. Requirements for wind profiles and information on vertical wind shear are constantly evolving. The need for high-quality wind and profile information to capture and initialize small-amplitude, fast-evolving, and mesoscale dynamical structures increases, as the resolution of global NWP improved well into the 3D turbulence regime on horizontal scales smaller than 500 km. In addition, advanced requirements to describe the transport and dispersion of atmospheric constituents and better depict the circulation on climate scales are well recognized. Direct wind profile observations over the oceans, tropics, and Southern Hemisphere are not provided by the current global observing system. Looking to the future, most other wind observation techniques rely on cloud or regions of water vapor and are necessarily restricted in coverage. Therefore, after its full demonstration, an operational Aeolus-like follow-on mission obtaining globally distributed wind profiles in clear air by exploiting molecular scattering remains unique.
This paper studies the potential of ground-based microwave radiometers (MWR) for providing accurate temperature retrievals by combining convective scale numerical models and brightness temperatures ...(BTs). A one-dimensional variational (1D-Var) retrieval technique has been tested to optimally combine MWR and 3-h forecasts from the French convective scale model AROME. A microwave profiler HATPRO (Humidity and Temperature PROfiler) was operated during 6 months at the meteorological station of Bordeaux (Météo France). MWR BTs were monitored against simulations from the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator 2 radiative transfer model. An overall good agreement was found between observations and simulations for opaque V-band channels but large errors were observed for channels the most affected by liquid water and water vapour emissions (51.26 and 52.28 GHz). 1D-Var temperature retrievals are performed in clear-sky and cloudy conditions using a screening procedure based on cloud base height retrieval from ceilometer observations, infrared radiometer temperature and liquid water path derived from the MWR observations. The 1D-Var retrievals were found to improve the AROME forecasts up to 2 km with a maximum gain of approximately 50 % in root-mean-square-errors (RMSE) below 500 m. They were also found to outperform neural network retrievals. A static bias correction was proposed to account for systematic instrumental errors. This correction was found to have a negligible impact on the 1D-Var retrievals. The use of low elevation angles improves the retrievals up to 12 % in RMSE in cloudy-sky in the first layers. The present implementation achieved a RMSE with respect to radiosondes within 1 K in clear-sky and 1.3 K in cloudy-sky conditions for temperature.
Soon after its successful launch in August 2018, the spaceborne wind lidar ALADIN (Atmospheric LAser Doppler INstrument) on-board ESA’s Earth Explorer satellite Aeolus has demonstrated to provide ...atmospheric wind profiles on a global scale. Being the first ever Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) instrument in space, ALADIN contributes to the improvement in numerical weather prediction (NWP) by measuring one component of the horizontal wind vector. The performance of the ALADIN instrument was assessed by a team from ESA, DLR, industry, and NWP centers during the first months of operation. The current knowledge about the main contributors to the random and systematic errors from the instrument will be discussed. First validation results from an airborne campaign with two wind lidars on-board the DLR Falcon aircraft will be shown.
Air quality issues are frequent in urbanized valleys, particularly in wintertime when a temperature inversion forms and the air within the valley is stably stratified over several days. In addition ...to pollutant sources, local winds can have a significant impact on the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of pollutant concentrations. They can be very complex and difficult to represent in numerical weather prediction models, particularly under stable conditions. Better knowledge of these local winds from observations is also a prerequisite to improving air quality prediction capability. This paper analyses local winds during the Passy-2015 field experiment that took place in a section of the Arve river valley, near Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. This location is one of the worst places in France regarding air quality. The wind analysis, which is mainly based on scanning Doppler lidar data sampling a persistent temperature inversion episode, reveals features consistent with the higher pollutant concentrations observed in this section of the valley as well as their spatial heterogeneities. In particular, an elevated down-valley jet is observed at night in the northern half of the valley, which, combined with a weak daytime up-valley wind, leads to very poor ventilation of the lowest layers. A northeast-southwest gradient in ventilation is observed on a daily-average, and is consistent with the PM10 heterogeneities observed within the valley.
The ADM-Aeolus mission, to be launched by end of 2017, will enable the retrieval of aerosol optical properties (extinction and backscatter coefficients essentially) for different atmospheric ...conditions. A newly developed feature finder (FF) algorithm enabling the detection of aerosol and cloud targets in the atmospheric scene has been implemented. Retrievals of aerosol properties at a better horizontal resolution based on the feature finder groups have shown an improvement mainly on the backscatter coefficient compared to the common 90 km product.
Estimating fast turbulence fluctuations in the boundary layer of the atmosphere, using remote detection instrument is an important scientific issue. Doppler LIDAR, is typically used to get this kind ...of information because it can make fast, distant, precise, and non-intrusive measurements of the wind field by giving the radial component in any direction. The objective of those measurements is to evaluate as precisely as possible the wind structure using the partial wind information provided, in order to estimate turbulent parameters. The approach presented in this paper, consist in coupling the remote detection system and a stochastic Lagrangian model of the atmosphere. The fluid is represented by a set of interacting particles, evolving according to an evolution system based on S.B Pope work. Data provided by the instrument are assimilated in real time in the model using a particle filtering algorithm. The purpose is to locally correct the properties of particles using measurements, to fit the real fluid observed. A precise real time estimation of the wind field, allows then to estimate turbulent parameters. The methodology has produced convincing results on simulated Doppler LIDAR measurements, in tree-dimensional modeling.
A three‐dimensional mesoscale numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the dust emissions over the Sahel associated with strong near‐surface winds in the region of the West African ...Inter Tropical Discontinuity (ITD) during the summer, when the ITD is located over Niger and Mali around 18°N. The study focuses on the period from 2 to 12 July 2006, in the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) Special Observing Period 2a1. The comparison with observations suggests that the model can be used reliably to analyze and quantify the dust emissions associated with the strong near‐surface winds blowing over the Sahelian dust sources during the period of interest. The daily mean values of dust load related to the strong winds on both side of the ITD, as estimated from the simulation within the model domain (2°W–16°E, 12–28°N), are in excess of 2 Tg on some of the days of the 2–12 July 2006 period. In the present case, the dust load associated with the strong winds south of the ITD accounts for between one third and two thirds of the total load mobilized in the ITD region over the entire domain on a given day. It is simulated to range between 0.5 and 0.8 Tg on average. This study suggests that emissions driven by strong surface winds occurring on both sides of the ITD while lying across the Sahel may contribute significantly to the total dust load over West and North Africa observed annually.
The first wind lidar in space ALADIN will be deployed on ESA´s Aeolus mission. In order to assess the performance of ALADIN and to optimize the wind retrieval and calibration algorithms an end-to-end ...simulator was developed. This allows realistic simulations of data downlinked by Aeolus. Together with operational processors this setup is used to assess random and systematic error sources and perform sensitivity studies about the influence of atmospheric and instrument parameters.
Ready for launch by the end of 2016, the Doppler lidar mission AEOLUS from the European Space Agency (ESA) will be the first High-Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) in space. Operating in the UV, it ...implements two detection channels for aerosol and molecular backscatter. The system is primarily designed for the measurement of winds, but the HSRL capability enables the measurement of the particulate backscatter and extinction coefficients without any a priori assumption on the aerosol type. The level-2A (L2A) processor has been developed for these measurements and tested with synthetic data. The results show good aerosol backscatter profiles can be retrieved. Extinction coefficients are reasonable but do not reach the quality of backscatter coefficients. A precise, full, radiometric calibration of the lidar is required. A major limitation of the system is a single polarization component of the light is detected leading to an underestimation of backscatter coefficients when the atmospheric particles are depolarizing. The vertical resolution goes from 250 meters in the lowest part of the atmosphere, to 2 km in the lower stratosphere. The maximum altitude can reach above 20km. The basic horizontal averaging is 90km. Averaging on shorter distances (down to a few km) are possible but require a sufficient signal to noise ratio.
Sea-breeze dynamics in the Marseille area, in the south of France, is investigated in the framework of the ESCOMPTE experiment conducted during summer 2001 in order to evaluate the role of thermal ...circulations on pollutant transport and ventilation. Under particular attention in this paper is the sea-breeze channelling by the broad Rhône valley and the narrow Durance valley, both oriented nearly-north–south, i.e., perpendicular to the coastline, and its possible impact on the sea-breeze penetration, intensity and depth, which are key information for air pollution issues. One situation of slight synoptic pressure gradient leading to a northerly flow in the Rhône valley (25 June 2001) and one situation of a weak onshore prevailing synoptic wind (26 June 2001) are compared. The impact of the Rhône and Durance valleys on the sea-breeze dynamics on these two typical days is generalized to the whole ESCOMPTE observing period.
The present study shows by combining simple scaling analysis with wind data from meteorological surface stations and Doppler lidars that (i) the Durance valley always affects the sea breeze by accelerating the flow. A consequence is that the Durance valley contributes to weaken the temperature gradient along the valley and thus the sea-breeze circulation. In some cases, the acceleration of the channelled flow in the Durance valley suppresses the sea-breeze flow by temperature gradient inhibition; (ii) the Rhône valley does not generally affect the sea breeze significantly. However, if the sea breeze is combined with an onshore flow, it leads to further penetration inland and intensification of the low-level southerly flow. In this situation, lateral constriction may accelerate the sea breeze. Simple scaling analysis suggests that Saint Paul (44.35°N, about 100 km from the coastline) is the lower limit where sea breeze can be affected by the Rhône valley. These conclusions have implications in air quality topics as channelled sea breeze may advect far inland pollutants which may be incorporated into long-range transport, particularly in the Durance valley.
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