Calibration and Validation
n August 2018, ESA’s Earth Explorer mission Aeolus has been successfully launched to space. Since then Aeolus has been demonstrating its capability to accurately measure atmospheric wind Prof.iles from the ground to the lower stratosphere on a global scale deploying the first ever satellite-borne wind lidar system ALADIN. In order to validate Aeolus wind products several airborne campaigns were performed over Central Europa and the North Atlantic region (most recently in autumn 2019 in Iceland), employing the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D) developed by DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt). Ground-based direct-detection and heterodyne Doppler wind lidar and ocean lidar are developed by the Ocean University of China (OUC) and deployed during several field campaigns, including the sailing competition within the Olympic Games in 2008 in Qingdao and the atmospheric explorer in Tibetan Plateau Experiment of Atmospheric Sciences (TIPEX III). The Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed a ground based direct-detection wind lidar in 355nm and a airborne coherent Doppler wind lidar. SIOM is responsible for several ground validation stations for future spaceborne atmospheric lidar in China, which may provide useful aerosol and wind Prof.iles data for Aeolus validation. The National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC), China Meteorological Administration (CMA) is responsible for receiving, processing the data of Chinese FY meteorological satellites, and distributing the data and information products to users for application. Apart from that, it is envisaged to investigate the capability of measuring the marine boundary layer with Aeolus and to measure marine optical properties with co-located shipborne ocean lidar systems during overpasses of Aeolus. The first part of this proposal covers the validation of Aeolus wind and aerosol data products by means of ground and airborne observations with the objective to improve the quality of Aeolus operational data products. Global observations of column carbon dioxide concentrations and aerosol extinction Prof.iles are important for climate study and environment monitoring which is why China decided to implement the lidar mission ACDL (Aerosol and Carbon dioxide Detection Lidar) to measure CO2 and aerosol from space – currently scheduled for 2021. Within this framework a spaceborne engineering prototype of the ACDL lidar is being developed and an airborne lidar prototype for column carbon dioxide concentration measurements was developed by Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The second part of the proposal covers the preparation of the ACDL mission with the objectives to analyse requirements for column carbon dioxide concentration and aerosol extinction Prof.ile measurements of the ACDL lidar for science applications and to validate the retrieval algorithms for carbon dioxide and aerosol parameters for the future space mission.
