Demonstrated Aeolus benefits in atmospheric sciences

Conference item

We highlight some of the scientific benefits of the Aeolus Doppler Wind Lidar mission since its launch in August 2018. Its scientific objectives are to improve weather forecasts and to advance the understanding of atmospheric dynamics and its interaction with the atmospheric energy and water cycle. A number of meteorological and science institutes across the world are starting to demonstrate that the Aeolus mission objectives are being met. Its wind product is being operationally assimilated by four Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) centres, thanks to demonstrated useful positive impact on NWP analyses and forecasts. Applications of its atmospheric optical properties product have been found, e.g., in the detection and tracking of smoke from the extreme Australian wildfires of 2020 and in atmospheric composition data assimilation. The winds are finding novel applications in atmospheric dynamics research, such as tropical phenomena (Quasi-Biennial Oscillation disruption events), detection of atmospheric gravity waves, and in the smoke generated vortex associated with the Australian wildfires. It has been applied in the assessment of other types of satellite derived wind information such as atmospheric motions vectors. Aeolus is already successful with hopefully more to come.

Authors: Rennie, M; Stoffelen, A; Khaykin, S; Osprey, S; Wright, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IEEE
• Host title: 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS
• Pages: 763-766
• Publication date: 2021-10-12
• Acceptance date: 2021-04-08
• Event title: IGARSS 2021 - 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium
• Event location: Virtual Event
• Event website: https://igarss2021.com/
• Event start date: 2021-07-12
• Event end date: 2021-07-16
• DOI: 10.1109/igarss47720.2021.9554267
• EISSN: 2153-7003
• ISSN: 2153-6996
• EISBN: 978-1-6654-0369-6
• ISBN: 978-1-6654-4762-1
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR; DWL; optical properties; NWP; Aeolus; winds; atmospheric dynamics