Retrieval improvements for the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator in support of the Aeolus wind product validation

Lux, Oliver; Lemmerz, Christian; Weiler, Fabian; Marksteiner, Uwe; Witschas, Benjamin; Rahm, Stephan; Geiß, Alexander; Schäfler, Andreas; Reitebuch, Oliver

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1303-2022

Articles | Volume 15, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1303-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Aeolus data and their application (AMT/ACP/WCD inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1303-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 5

Research article

|

11 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 11 Mar 2022

Retrieval improvements for the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator in support of the Aeolus wind product validation

Oliver Lux, Christian Lemmerz, Fabian Weiler, Uwe Marksteiner, Benjamin Witschas, Stephan Rahm, Alexander Geiß, Andreas Schäfler, and Oliver Reitebuch

Data sets

ADM-Aeolus Level-2B/2C Processor Input/Output DataDefinitions Interface Control Document, AED-SD-ECMWF-L2B-037 J. de Kloe, A. Stoffelen, D. Tan, E. Andersson, M. Rennie, A. Dabas, P. Poli, and D. Huber https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/documents/20142/37627/Aeolus-L2B-2C-Input-Output-DD-ICD.pdf

L2C assimilated wind products European Space Agency (ESA) http://aeolus-ds.eo.esa.int/oads/access/collection/L2C_Wind_Products

Short summary

The article discusses modifications in the wind retrieval of the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D) – one of the key instruments for the validation of Aeolus. Thanks to the retrieval refinements, which are demonstrated in the context of two airborne campaigns in 2019, the systematic and random wind errors of the A2D were significantly reduced, thereby enhancing its validation capabilities. Finally, wind comparisons between A2D and Aeolus for the validation of the satellite data are presented.