Validation of Aeolus Level 2B wind products using wind profilers, ground-based Doppler wind lidars, and radiosondes in Japan
Authors: Iwai Hironori , Aoki Makoto , Oshiro Mitsuru , Ishii Shoken 
Published: November 2021

Abstract. The first space-based Doppler wind lidar (DWL) on board
the Aeolus satellite was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on 22 August 2018 to obtain global profiles of horizontal line-of-sight (HLOS)
wind speed. In this study, the Raleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy winds for
periods of baseline 2B02 (from 1 October to 18 December 2018) and 2B10 (from
28 June to 31 December 2019 and from 20 April to 8 October 2020) were
validated using 33 wind profilers (WPRs) installed all over Japan, two
ground-based coherent Doppler wind lidars (CDWLs), and 18 GPS radiosondes
(GPS-RSs). In particular, vertical and seasonal analyses were performed and
discussed using WPR data. During the baseline 2B02 period, a positive bias
was found to be in the ranges of 0.5 to 1.7 m s−1 for Rayleigh-clear
winds and 1.6 to 2.4 m s−1 for Mie-cloudy winds using the three
independent reference instruments. The statistical comparisons for the
baseline 2B10 period showed smaller biases, −0.8 to 0.5 m s−1 for the
Rayleigh-clear and −0.7 to 0.2 m s−1 for the Mie-cloudy winds. The
vertical analysis using WPR data showed that the systematic error was
slightly positive in all altitude ranges up to 11 km during the baseline
2B02 period. During the baseline 2B10 period, the systematic errors of
Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy winds were improved in all altitude ranges up
to 11 km as compared with the baseline 2B02. Immediately after the launch of
Aeolus, both Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy biases were small. Within the
baseline 2B02, the Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy biases showed a positive
trend. For the baseline 2B10, the Rayleigh-clear wind bias was generally
negative for all months except August 2020, and Mie-cloudy wind bias
gradually fluctuated. Both Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy biases did not show
a marked seasonal trend and approached zero towards September 2020. The
dependence of the Rayleigh-clear wind bias on the scattering ratio was
investigated, showing that there was no significant bias dependence on the
scattering ratio during the baseline 2B02 and 2B10 periods. Without the
estimated representativeness error associated with the comparisons using WPR observations, the Aeolus random error was determined to be 6.7 (5.1) and 6.4 (4.8) m s−1 for Rayleigh-clear (Mie-cloudy) winds during the baseline
2B02 and 2B10 periods, respectively. The main reason for the large Aeolus
random errors is the lower laser energy compared to the anticipated 80 mJ.
Additionally, the large representativeness error of the WPRs is probably
related to the larger Aeolus random error. Using the CDWLs, the Aeolus
random error estimates were in the range of 4.5 to 5.3 (2.9 to 3.2) and 4.8
to 5.2 (3.3 to 3.4) m s−1 for Rayleigh-clear (Mie-cloudy) winds during
the baseline 2B02 and 2B10 periods, respectively. By taking the GPS-RS
representativeness error into account, the Aeolus random error was
determined to be 4.0 (3.2) and 3.0 (2.9) m s−1 for Rayleigh-clear
(Mie-cloudy) winds during the baseline 2B02 and 2B10 periods, respectively.