Aeolus Introduction

ADM-Aeolus is the second of ESA’s Earth Explorer core missions. The objective is to provide profiles of high-quality wind observations from the surface to 30 km, using a Doppler wind lidar (DWL) instrument in a near-polar sun-synchronous, dawn-dusk orbit. The wind information is the horizontal line-of-sight component, perpendicular to the satellite track. The mission is intended to have a minimum lifetime of three years.
ECMWF is leading the project to develop (in close collaboration with KNMI) the Aeolus Level 2B/C processing software i.e. wind retrieval.  The L2B wind retrieval algorithms have also been developed in the past in collaboration with Météo-France, DLR and LMD/IPSL.  ECMWF also aim to generate the L2B products in an operational fashion at ECMWF and to assimilate the L2B winds in our global NWP model. .  Aeolus will also provide information on the optical properties of cloud and aerosol (via the L2A product), with ALADIN being a High Spectral Resolution Lidar; the L2A product may have applications in the atmospheric composition model at ECMWF.  ECMWF has contributed to a number of ESA funded data impact studies to assess the potential impact of the Aeolus data. We expect the Aeolus mission to have a positive impact on forecast and analysis quality, in particular for the tropical winds.

The L2B processing software

ECMWF and KNMI are responsible for the development of the ADM-Aeolus wind retrieval software (the Level-2B processor) which produces Horizontal Line of Sight (HLOS) winds suitable for use in NWP and meteorological research.  The algorithms are described in Tan et al. (Tellus, A, 2008, 60, 2, 191-205), however there have been many improvements since then.

Obtaining the L2B processing software

• The ADM-Aeolus Level-2B/C processing documentation (including the Software Release Note, the Algorithm Theoretical Baseline and the Input/Output Data Definitions Interface Control Document) and associated datasets (needed to test the success of the installation) can be freely downloaded from here
• The source code can be downloaded from from our website (upon acceptance of the licence terms) 
• Any news on updates to the software, e.g. new deliveries, will be provided here
• Technical Notes prepared for ESA which are related to the L2B/C processing can be downloaded here (they are useful to help understand what the L2B products are like)