Validation of the Aeolus L2B wind product with airborne wind lidar measurements in the polar North Atlantic region and in the tropics

Abstract. During the first 3 years of European Space Agency's Aeolus mission, German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR) performed four airborne campaigns deploying two different Doppler wind lidars (DWL) on board DLR Falcon aircraft, aiming to validate quality recent Level 2B (L2B) data product (processor baseline 11 and 12). The campaigns, WindVal III (November–December 2018) AVATAR-E (Aeolus Validation Through Airborne Lidars in Europe, May June 2019), were conducted Europe provided insights into at beginning mission phase. later AVATAR-I Iceland) AVATAR-T Tropics), regions particular interest for validation: was from Keflavik, Iceland, between 9 September 1 October 2019 sample high speeds vicinity polar jet stream; carried out Sal, Cape Verde, 6 28 2021 measure winds Saharan dust-laden African easterly jet. Altogether, 10 underflights during AVATAR-T, covering about 8000 000 km along measurement track, respectively. Based these collocated measurements, statistical comparisons with reference lidar (2 µm DWL) as well situ measurements by determine systematic random errors Rayleigh-clear Mie-cloudy that are contained L2B product. It is demonstrated error almost fulfills requirement being below 0.7 m s?1 both winds. shown vary 5.5 7.1 thus larger than specified (2.5 s?1), whereas it close specifications (2.7 2.9 s?1). In addition, dependency actual speed, geolocation, scattering ratio, time difference 2 DWL observation satellite overflight investigated discussed. Thus, this work contributes characterization meteorological situations allows one investigate retrieval algorithm improvements reprocessed sets.