Contributions from the DISC to the Aeolus Mission in 2022 and 2023

Abstract

The Aeolus Data Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC) supports the Aeolus mission with a wide range of activities from instrument and product quality monitoring over retrieval algorithm improvements to numerical weather prediction (NWP) impact assessments for wind and aerosol forecasts. The Aeolus DISC provides support to ESA, Cal/Val teams, numerical weather prediction (NWP) centers, and scientific users for instrument special operations and calibration, for the re-processing of Aeolus products and through the provision of bi-annual updates of the L1A, L1B, L2A and L2B operational processors. The Aeolus DISC is coordinated by DLR with partners from ECMWF, KNMI, Météo-France, TROPOS, DoRIT, ABB, s&t, serco, OLA, Physics Solutions, IB Reissig and Les Myriades involving more than 40 scientists and engineers. The presentation will highlight the Aeolus DISC activities with a focus for the year 2022 and early 2023 since the last Aeolus workshop in Taormina, Italy during April 2022. This covers the evolution of the instrument performance including the significantly enhanced performance wrt. signal levels and random errors since the switch back to the flight model FM-A laser in October-November 2022. In addition, refinements of algorithms and processor updates will be outlined, which were introduced for the baseline B15 (13 September 2022) and B16 (expected to be released in spring 2023). A summary of the quality for the 3rd re-processing campaign for initial FM-A data (September 2018 - June 2019) will be give and an outlook to the 4th re-processing campaign covering the complete Aeolus mission. An outlook will also introduce some of the planned instrument activities in summer 2023 at the end of the expected mission lifetime of Aeolus. The Aeolus mission has fully achieved its mission objectives including the unprecedented demonstration of direct-detection Doppler wind lidar technology and high-power laser operation in space in the ultraviolet spectral region for more than 4 ½ years up to now - exceeding the planned mission lifetime of 3 years and 3 months. Aeolus wind products have clearly demonstrated positive impact on forecasts using several NWP models. Since early 2020, and thus only 1.5 years after launch, the Aeolus wind products were used in operation at ECMWF and at various NWP centers worldwide. This incredible success of Aeolus paved the way for the decision taken by the member states of ESA in November 2022 on the way forward of an operational follow-on wind lidar mission. These achievements of the Aeolus mission and its success were only possible with the essential and critical contributions from the Aeolus DISC. This demonstrates the need and potential for setting up such scientific consortia covering a wide range of expertise from instrument, processors, and scientific use of products for Earth Explorer type missions. The invaluable experience gained by the Aeolus DISC during the more than 4 years of Aeolus mission in orbit (preceded by a period of 20 years before launch by a similar study team) is a pre-requisite for the successful preparation of an operational follow-on wind lidar mission planned within the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) program.