Preliminary Results from the ATHENA-OAWL Venture Tech Airborne Mission Sunil Baidar (a, b), Sara Tucker (c), Mike Hardesty (a, b) (a) CIRES, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO (b) NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO (c) Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, CO
Objectives Demonstrate the wind measuring capability of the Green OAWL (GrOAWL) instrument. Evaluate the instrument sensitivity and efficiency. Assess the effect of different atmospheric conditions. 2 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
OAWL AOVT flights Deployed on NASA WB-57 May-June 2016 8 flights 5 engineering flights 3 validation flights Race track patterns over the Gulf of Mexico 3 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
GrOAWL instrument A direct detection Doppler wind lidar Operates at 532 nm wavelength Uses a field-widened, quadrature channel, Mach Zehnder interferometer Two azimuthally orthogonal Line of Sights FWD look: 45 Elevation angle and 45 Azimuth angle AFT look: 45 Elevation angle and 135 Azimuth angle Remotely operated Laser Electronics Laser-1 Variable 532 nm output power Fiber coupled OAWL Interferometer GPS/ IMU 2-looks, 2 telescopes Payload Controller Laser-2 4 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Validation Efforts Validation focused on radiosondes Balloon-sondes launched from NOAA NWS station at Corpus Christi High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) dropsondes Yankee Environmental Systems with support from Office of Naval Research Automated dropsonde system on WB-57 NOAA High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model winds 3 km resolution, hourly updated Radar data assimilated every 15 min over a 1-hour period Comparison with 0 hour forecast/analysis winds 5 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Validation flights 3 flights 17, 21 and 24 June, 2016 Race tracks pattern Revisit time: ~ 1 hour 46 HDSS Dropsondes released for wind validation Spaced 25-30 miles apart Capture spatial and temporal variability Radiosondes from Corpus Christi, TX 6 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Atmospheric Conditions Very different cloud conditions during 3 validation flights June 17 June 21 June 24 7 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Atmospheric Conditions 8 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016 April/May 2015
Atmospheric Conditions Fairly low aerosol. 9 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Comparison with HRRR June 17, 2016 20 second profiles 10 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
HDSS Comparison No direct overlap between GrOAWL LOS and dropsondes paths. Dropsondes travelled 3-5 km from release point. GrOAWL LOS is 9-14 km away at the surface. Dropsondes took 8-10 minutes to descent to the surface. Average GrOAWL 20 sec profiles for 10 minutes. Project the dropsonde winds to GrOAWL LOS along the flight track. 11 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
HDSS Comparison June 17, 2016 Dropsonde winds projected to GrOAWL LOS along the flight track. 12 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
HDSS Comparison June 17, 2016 Dropsonde winds projected to GrOAWL LOS along the flight track. 13 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
HDSS Comparison June 17, 2016 14 HDSS standard deviation: 1.12 m/s 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Summary and Outlook Comparison between GrOAWL measured winds and HDSS dropsonde winds show very good agreement. There is no evidence for bias in the GrOAWL LOSV. Preliminary results are very encouraging and full validation will be performed over the next few months. Evaluate the sensitivity and efficiency of the airborne instrument. Mini ground based measurement campaign planned for late summer along with NCAR HSRL lidar and water vapor lidar. 15 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016
Thank you 16 18th Coherent Laser Radar Conference, Boulder 2016