Remote Sensing of Wind Velocity from Satellite — Borne Lidar Systems

Abstract

The development of stable, tunable, diffraction-limited lasers has made possible the remote measurement of atmospheric wind velocity using a pulsed coherent laser radar. The Wave Propagation Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Environmental Research Laboratories has completed the investigation of the feasibility of measuring the global wind field using an infrared coherent laser radar under a joint program with the U.S. Air Force Space Di-vision Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). These studies investigated both the analytical and hardware feasibility of a space-borne global wind measuring coherent laser radar. Objectives and requirements of the Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program were used in the study. The vertical dis-tributions of the horizontal wind field were required throughout the troposphere with 300 km square horizontal and 1 km vertical resolution with a measurement ac-curacy of 1 m s-1. Complete global coverage was required with overlapping coverage at the equator. The lidar system should also be scalable to operational satellite conditions. The analytical studies were performed for both a 300 km altitude Space Shuttle orbit and an operational polar orbit of 800 km altitude [1, 2]. A hardware definition study was performed for a Space Shuttle demonstration test flight [3].