The atmospheric target parameters
Upper air measurements are currently sparse with an especially pronounced data gap for wind measurements above 5 km, being the maximum height of compact commercial wind lidars and radars. Hence, measuring at these altitudes is not only crucial for better understanding of the atmospheric dynamics and to enhance climate models but is also anticipated to bring substantial benefits for weather forecasting.
The lidar
The goal is to develop an array of UV lidars capable of measuring atmospheric wind and temperature from 5 up to at least 50 km on a 24/7-basis. The lidar units shall be low-priced, highly autonomous (>1 year without maintenance) with low power requirements, transportable and capable to operate in harsh environmental conditions. This shall make the instruments fit for operational usage.
The measurement campaigns
The lidar units will be deployed for multi-month campaigns in Northern Norway, the Swiss alpine region, Southern France and the tropics. Besides the demonstration of the ability of the systems to operate under harsh conditions, these campaigns will serve as basis for the validation with a multitude of co-located observations capabilities. The datasets collected in all major climate regions shall also bring evidence for the value of such systems for the meteorology and climatology community.
The data processing and dissemination
Particular emphasis will be put on the near real-time capability to process the data collected during the measurement campaigns. This will not only concern the wind and temperature retrievals but also their feed to data streams and databases relevant for the community. In this way the results will be available validation, assimilation and other near real-time applications.