Simulation of wind profiles from a space-borne Doppler wind lidar

The importance of wind observations for meteorological analysis has been recognized for many years. The current global observing system lacks a uniform distribution of tropospheric wind measurements, especially in the tropics and southern hemisphere, and over the northern-hemisphere oceans. A Doppler wind lidar (DWL) mounted on a space-borne platform has the potential to provide a global three-dimensional coverage of wind data. The European Space Agency has decided to fly in 2007 a DWL on a polar-orbiting satellite platform as part of the Atmospheric Dynamics Mission, now called Aeolus. The proposed DWL is a non-scanning single-perspective instrument, operating in the ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum, providing profiles of line-of-sight (LOS) wind components from detected light backscattered from the illuminated atmospheric volume. The concept has been simulated and was used in observation-system simulation experiments to assess its potential impact on numerical weather prediction and climate processes. This paper describes the simulation of Aeolus LOS wind-component profiles and their expected quality in cloud-free and cloudy conditions.