NASA’s Interest in Wind Lidar

1. NASA’s Interest in Wind Lidar Ramesh Kakar Weather Focus Lead June 27, 2006

2. Earth Science Research Fundamental Science Questions • How is the global Earth system changing? • What are the primary forcings of the Earth system? • How does the Earth system respond to natural and human-induced changes? • What are the consequencesof changes in the Earth system for human civilization? • How well can we predict future changes in the Earth system? How is the Earth changing and what are the consequences of life on Earth?

4. Science Questions from the Research Strategy Directly addressed by Weather Focus Area Precipitation, evaporation & cycling of water changing? Atmospheric constituents & solar radiation on climate? Clouds & surface hydrological processes on climate? Weather variation related to climate variation? Weather forecasting improvement? Global ocean circulation varying? Changes in land cover & land use? Consequences of land cover & land use? Improve predic-tion of climate variability & change? Ecosystem, land cover & biogeochemical responses? Motions of the Earth and Earth’s interior? Changes in global ocean circulation? Coastal region impacts? Ozone, climate & air quality impacts of atmospheric composition? Global ecosystems changing? Forcing Stratospheric ozone changing? Atmospheric trace constituents responses? Regional air quality impacts? Carbon cycle and ecosystem change? Consequence Ice cover mass changing? Sea level affected by Earth system change? Change in water cycle dynamics? Response Earth surface transformation? Predict & mitigate natural hazards from Earth surface change? Variability Prediction

5. “How Can Weather Forecast Duration and Reliability Be Improved By New Space-Based Observations, Assimilation, and Modeling?” Forecast improvement • By 2015: Weather and severe storm forecasting improve-ments: • Hurricane landfall accuracy improved for evacuation decisions • Winter storm hazards predicted for appropriate mitigation • Improved regional nowcasting of severe weather to enable life-saving actions, reducing false alarms • Quantitative precipitation forecasts accurate for economic decisions T Global tropospheric winds • Improvements require: • Focused validation experiments • New Technology • Impact Assessments Severe weather forecasts Funded GEO : Lightning, ir & microwave sounding Unfunded Improved weather, flood forecasts = Field Campaign T Soil Moisture Improved physical & dynamical processes Global Precipitation Global monitoring of water, energy, clouds, and air quality – Operational prototype mission Significant forecast improvements Better description of atmospheric dynamics, cloud distributions for radiation modeling, aerosol concentrations for air quality projection, and better imagery of snow/ice cover and severe weather phenomena like hurricanes and floods. High-resolution global measurements of temperature, moisture, cloud properties, and aerosols (EOS instruments) Knowledge Base NASA/NOAA collaborative centers Realistic and accelerated use by NOAA of new NASA knowledge, measurements, and data assimilation techniques. Satellite-derived localized heating inputs leading to better physical understanding and modeling of precipitating systems. Observations of tropical rainfall/energy release Steady, evolutionary improvement in weather prediction accuracy due to ongoing model refinement in operational agencies, finer-scale model resolution, improved use of probabilistic and statistical forecasting aided by multiple-component ensemble initializations, and incorporation of radar and aircraft-measurements Weather satellite sensor and technique development; used by NOAA Systematic measurements of atmosphere, ocean, and land surface parameters 2004 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

6. Enabling Elements • ElementStatus • Temperature AIRS/AMSU and AMSR-E adequate for and moisture now but need to develop LIDAR based sounders for future needs • Precipitation TRMM and AMSR-E are in reasonably good shape but GPM has funding problems • Wind 4 IIP proposals selected for technology development and discussions initiated with NOAA and DOD for joint satellite demo • Modeling SPORT and JCSDA contributing • Field Experiments Contributing significantly to hurricane research

7. NASA Historical Role in Doppler Wind Lidar • Aircraft (CV-990) measurements in the early eighties • LAWS selected as an EOS facility instrument • LAWS science team selected in the mid eighties • LAWS concept studied by two contractors (GE and Lockheed) • GLObal Backscatter Experiment (GLOBE) around 1990 • OSSE’s • Multi-center Airborne Coherent Atmospheric Wind Sensor (MACAWS) flights in 1995, 1996 and 1998 • ESTO Laser risk reduction program • 4 IIP proposals selected for technology development

8. NASA’s Interest in Wind Lidar • Currently the highest priority mission concept in the Weather Focus Area • Independently assigned high priority by ESTO Laser/Lidar Working Group

9. Excerpt from the new Earth science strategy document • A new satellite mission to accurately measure the three-dimensional global wind field is an important frontier that must be crossed to optimally specify global initial conditions for numerical weather forecasts. The wind field plays a unique dynamical role in forcing the mass field to adjust to it at all scales in the tropics, and at smaller scales in the extratropics. Because of this, direct wind field measurement will have a much greater payback than improving accuracy and resolution of the mass field measurements already provided by advanced sounders, e.g., AIRS.

10. Atmospheric WindsRecommended Roadmap 0.355 & 2 Micron Winds NASA 400 km Science 3 yr Ž Past Œ  1 Micron Altimetry 0.355 & 2 Micron Winds Space-like Geometry & Scanning 0.355 & 2 Micron Winds NPOESS 833 km Demo 2 Micron Winds 0.355 & 2 Micron Winds