Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons
During October-November 2014 and May 2015, NASA sponsored and conducted a pair of airborne campaigns called Polar Winds to investigate atmospheric circulations, particularly in the boundary layer, over the Arctic using NASA's Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar. A description of the campaigns, th...
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_23828 2024-04-28T08:08:10+00:00 Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons Greco, Steven (author) Emmitt, George D. (author) DuVivier, Alice (author) Hines, Keith (author) Kavaya, Michael (author) 2020-10-22 https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111141 en eng Atmosphere--Atmosphere--2073-4433 articles:23828 ark:/85065/d7891952 doi:10.3390/atmos11111141 Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. article Text 2020 ftncar https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111141 2024-04-04T17:33:50Z During October-November 2014 and May 2015, NASA sponsored and conducted a pair of airborne campaigns called Polar Winds to investigate atmospheric circulations, particularly in the boundary layer, over the Arctic using NASA's Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar. A description of the campaigns, the DAWN instrument, wind retrieval methods and data processing is provided. During the campaigns, the DAWN instrument faced backscatter sensitivity issues in the low aerosol conditions that were fairly frequent in the 2-6 km altitude range. However, when DAWN was able to make measurements, comparisons with dropsondes show good agreement and very low bias and supports the use of an airborne Doppler wind lidar such as DAWN that can provide profiles with high velocity precision, similar to 65 m vertical resolution and horizontal spacing as fine as 3-7 km. Case study analyses of a Greenland tip jet, barrier winds and an upper level jet are presented and show how, despite sensitivity issues, DAWN data can be confidently used in diagnostic studies of dynamic features in the Arctic. Comparisons with both an operational and research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for these events also show the potential for utilization in model validation. The sensitivity issues of the DAWN laser have since been corrected. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Greenland OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Atmosphere 11 11 1141 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
During October-November 2014 and May 2015, NASA sponsored and conducted a pair of airborne campaigns called Polar Winds to investigate atmospheric circulations, particularly in the boundary layer, over the Arctic using NASA's Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar. A description of the campaigns, the DAWN instrument, wind retrieval methods and data processing is provided. During the campaigns, the DAWN instrument faced backscatter sensitivity issues in the low aerosol conditions that were fairly frequent in the 2-6 km altitude range. However, when DAWN was able to make measurements, comparisons with dropsondes show good agreement and very low bias and supports the use of an airborne Doppler wind lidar such as DAWN that can provide profiles with high velocity precision, similar to 65 m vertical resolution and horizontal spacing as fine as 3-7 km. Case study analyses of a Greenland tip jet, barrier winds and an upper level jet are presented and show how, despite sensitivity issues, DAWN data can be confidently used in diagnostic studies of dynamic features in the Arctic. Comparisons with both an operational and research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for these events also show the potential for utilization in model validation. The sensitivity issues of the DAWN laser have since been corrected. |
author2 |
Greco, Steven (author) Emmitt, George D. (author) DuVivier, Alice (author) Hines, Keith (author) Kavaya, Michael (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
spellingShingle |
Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
title_short |
Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
title_full |
Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
title_fullStr |
Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
title_full_unstemmed |
Polar winds: Airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the Arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
title_sort |
polar winds: airborne doppler wind lidar missions in the arctic for atmospheric observations and numerical model comparisons |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111141 |
genre |
Arctic Greenland |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
op_relation |
Atmosphere--Atmosphere--2073-4433 articles:23828 ark:/85065/d7891952 doi:10.3390/atmos11111141 |
op_rights |
Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111141 |
container_title |
Atmosphere |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
11 |
container_start_page |
1141 |
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1797577066377379840 |