Remote sensing of multi-level wind fields with high-energy airborne scanning coherent Doppler lidar

Abstract

The atmospheric lidar remote sensing groups of NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed and flown a scanning, 1 Joule per pulse, CO2 coherent Doppler lidar capable of mapping a three-dimensional volume of atmospheric winds and aerosol backscatter in the planetary boundary layer, free troposphere, and lower stratosphere. Applications include the study of severe and non-severe atmospheric flows, intercomparisons with other sensors, and the simulation of prospective satellite Doppler lidar wind profilers. Examples of wind measurements are given for the marine boundary layer and near the coastline of the western United States.

Lidar-Measured Wind Profiles: The Missing Link in the Global Observing System

“…Multiple references provide additional information on coherent detection systems (Kavaya et al 1989(Kavaya et al , 2014Henderson et al 1991;Wagener et al 1995; among others) and their use in atmospheric boundary layer studies (Post and Cupp 1990;Huffaker and Hardesty 1996;Rothermel et al 1998;Grund et al 2001;Banta et al 2002;Koch et al 2010;Tucker et al 2009;Bluestein et al 2011;de Wekker et al 2012), wind turbine studies (Käsler et al 2010), and hazard detection and avoidance at airports (Hannon et al 2005). Coherent airborne DWLs have also been used to explore the potential impact of future spacebased lidars and to develop the necessary advanced signal processing and data interpretation algorithms .…”

Time evolution of monsoon low-level jet observed over an Indian tropical station during the peak monsoon period from high-resolution Doppler wind lidar measurements

“…Remote sensing of horizontal and vertical winds using the Doppler lidar technique was introduced as early as the mid‐1960s [ Forman et al ., ] and since then, methods have vastly improved [ Rothermel et al ., ; Aitken et al ., ]. The Doppler lidar technique basically utilizes aerosols in the atmosphere as natural tracers for measuring atmospheric motions.…”

A Compact, Flexible, and Robust Micropulsed Doppler Lidar

“…Airborne Doppler lidars, while not new (Rothermel et al 1998;Bilbro et al 1984;Tratt et al 2002;Li et al 2010;Baidar et al 2013;Tollerud et al 2008;Kiemle et al 2007), are underutilized in real-time wildfire research owing to the difficulty of deploying a flight-ready FIG. 7.…”

“…The first Doppler lidar developed at NOAA's Earth Systems Research Laboratory (ESRL) was a 10 mm, high-power system capable of interrogating up to 30 km and primarily designed for large-scale atmospheric transport measurements and horizontal scanning (Post et al 1982). This system was physically large, expensive, and only transportable via a shipping container so was limited in field use to ships, large aircraft (Rothermel et al 1998), or stationary ground deployments (Banta et al 1992). Subsequent lidars from NOAA focused on shorter wavelength and smaller range, though with increased time-and spatial-resolution capability within the boundary layer (Brewer and Hardesty 1995;Grund et al 2001).…”