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Abstract
Wind profiles over the ocean, tropics and southern hemisphere are largely lacking. ESA is planning to launch a direct detection high spectral resolution Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) in 2011 in the Atmospheric Dynamics Mission (ADM), called Aeolus. Aeolus is expected to provide unique data of great value to the meteorological community, as has been verified in several Numerical Weather Prediction impact experiments and will be illustrated at the conference.
Following requirements for space-based wind profiles from the World Meteorological Organisation, WMO, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, EUMETSAT, recognizes wind profiles as high priority for the post-EPS programme (2020). Moreover, a DWL may be combined with an aerosol and cloud profiling lidar. There is however at present no funded programme to provide wind profile data between the end of life of Aeolus and the post-EPS era.
An affordable post-Aeolus option has been sketched by ESA that has been tested to provide beneficial NWP analysis and forecast impact, and that has support from several NWP centres. The requirements and expectations from the above wind lidar missions will be elaborated at the meeting.