Abstract
With the objective of providing tropospheric wind profile data over the mid-latitude oceans and tropics for data-starved weather forecast models, the Earth Venture Instrument (EV-I) Mission concept “Atmospheric Transport, Hurricanes, and Extratropical Numerical weAther prediction with the Optical Autocovariance Wind Lidar” (ATHENA-OAWL) was proposed in November 2013. The mission concept is described here along with a brief history of the OAWL system development and current development of an ATHENA-OAWL airborne demonstrator under NASA’s Venture Technology development.
Highlights
The need for and feasibility of putting a Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) into space for global wind monitoring have been covered in multiple works, spanning four decades, from Huffaker et al 1978[1] to Baker et al 2014[2] and Atlas et al 2015 [3]
A DWL has not yet flown in space, ESA’s Aeolus mission promises to launch in late 2016. [4][5] In the US, technological readiness, uncertainty about what approach would provide the most impact on weather forecasting, and projected cost have attenuated space-based Doppler wind lidar system developments
The Optical Autocovariance approach to measuring Doppler shifts works similar to a Michelson interferometer
Summary
The need for and feasibility of putting a Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) into space for global wind monitoring have been covered in multiple works, spanning four decades, from Huffaker et al 1978[1] to Baker et al 2014[2] and Atlas et al 2015 [3]. [4][5] In the US, technological readiness, uncertainty about what approach would provide the most impact on weather forecasting, and projected cost have attenuated space-based Doppler wind lidar system developments.
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