History of Developing a Doppler Wind Lidar for Space 1985 2005

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History of Developing a Doppler Wind Lidar for
Space1985 -2005

• Dr. Wayman E. Baker
• Deputy Director, NCEP Central Operations

WHERE AMERICAS CLIMATE, WEATHER AND OCEAN
PREDICTION SERVICES BEGIN
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Overview

• Pre-LAWS Era (1985 1988)
• LAWS Era (1989 1993)
• NPOESS Era (1994 Present)

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Pre-LAWS (Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder) Era
1985 1988

• 1985 (July) - First Global Wind Symposium and
  Workshop Convened
• - 100 environmental scientists and lidar
  specialists attended and recommended
• - A space-based Doppler wind lidar (DWL) be
  developed in order to provide data for the
  investigation of atmospheric phenomena peculiar
  to data sparse regions as well as data for global
  weather forecasting,
• - An aerosol backscatter survey be conducted,
• - A DWL be considered for NASAs Earth
  Observing System
• - Consideration be given to conducting a
  coherent CO2 DWL Shuttle mission
• 1986 (January) Development of a non-scanning
  pulsed CO2 Doppler lidar for a shuttle-based
  technology demonstration (SCALE) was terminated
  after the explosion of the Shuttle Challenger

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Pre-LAWS (Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder) Era
1985 1988 (Cont.)

• 1986 - William D. Bonner, Director, National
  Meteorological Center, stated
• - . . .the addition of global wind profiles
  offers the best opportunity for significant
  improvement in medium and large-scale forecasts.
  . .wind data will enhance forecasts on all
  scales.
• 1987 (January) - NASA EOS LAWS Instrument Panel
  Report concluded
• - The increased use of global wind vector
  fields in NWP models offers perhaps the greatest
  potential for increased accuracy in operational
  forecasts. . .
• - The gap between our requirements for
  global wind data and their availability continues
  to widen.
• - . . .LAWS will provide. . .significant
  improvements in NWP. . .and improved
  understanding of atmospheric circulation and
  dynamics and the biogeochemical and hydrological
  cycles.

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LAWS Era 1989 1993

• 1989 - LAWS designated as an EOS Facility
  Instrument and the LAWS Science Team established
• 1989 - First comprehensive GLObal Backscatter
  Experiment (GLOBE)
• 1989 - Chanin et al. (Observatorie Haute Provence
  in France) measured stratospheric winds with a
  Rayleigh dual channel DWL at 532 nm.
• 1990 (July) - The World Meteorological
  Organization stated
• - The proposed LAWS instrument is . . .the
  only practical possibility for significantly
  augmenting observations of the three-dimensional
  wind field . . . We give highest priority to the
  implementation of an earth observing mission
  carrying LAWS.
• 1990 - Second GLOBE flight series
• 1990 - First 2-micron wind measurement at
  NASA/MSFC

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LAWS Era 1989 1993 (Cont.)

• 1991 (June) - Elbert W. Friday, Director, NWS,
  stated in a memo to the NESDIS Director
• - Wind data from LAWS should provide very
  significant improvements in global analyses which
  will be critical to future advances in both our
  understanding of climate and global change and in
  numerical weather forecasting.
• 1991 (October) Berrien Moore, Chairperson, EOS
  Payload Panel, stated
• - LAWS wind data are viewed by the Payload
  Panel as extremely important for characterizing
  the three-dimensional tropospheric wind field,
  calculation of the transport of moisture and
  trace gases, and developing a cloud climatology,
  especially in the Southern Hemisphere and over
  oceans.

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LAWS Era 1989 1993 (Cont.)

• 1992 (Approximate) - David Burridge, Director,
  European Centre for Medium-Range Weather
  Forecasts, in a letter to Wayman Baker, stated
• - . . . For many researchers concerned with
  climate and weather studies, LAWS is the holy
  grail of instruments. The availability of global
  or near-global high resolution wind measurements
  will have a profound impact on our quantitative
  understanding of atmospheric behavior and
  therefore on our ability to model the atmosphere.
  
• 1993 (Approximate) - Ghassem Asrar, NASA EOS
  Program Scientist, stated
• - EOS particularly needs. . . important
  fields that will still be inadequately observed,
  including wind . . .

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LAWS Era 1989 1993 (Cont.)

• 1993 (July/August) Ron Errico, Data
  Assimilation Specialist, National Center for
  Atmospheric Research, stated in the The Earth
  Observer
• - Data assimilation using an NWP-type model
  is critical to the success of EOS. This
  criticality should not be underestimated. . . In
  particular, with no wind observing system planned
  for EOS, process studies will be extremely
  limited since advection, both horizontally and
  vertically, is such a dominant mechanism.
• 1993 (October) Pierre Morel, Director, World
  Climate Research Program (WCRP), in a letter to
  the NOAA Administrator stated
• - Given realistic system performances,
  global wind observations by a LAWS satellite
  would have an immediate and quite significant
  impact on global weather analysis and forecasts,
  and lead to considerable improvement in the
  determination of derived flux quantities used by
  the WCRP and climate prediction research.

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LAWS Era 1989 1993 (Cont.)

• 1993 (December) - LAWS instrument and Science
  Team de-selected because of EOS budgetary
  constraints

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present

• 1994 (January) Working Group for Space-Based
  Lidar Winds established
• 1994 Wind profiles measured using the edge
  technique with aerosols at 1064 nm at NASA/GSFC
• 1994 First airborne solid-state pulsed lidar
  measurement of winds at NASA/MSFC (TmYAG)
• 1994 (December) Francis Cordova, NASA Chief
  Scientist, stated in a letter
• - It is clear that global wind observations
  will provide useful information to virtually
  every area of earth sciences and, in particular,
  benefit our Mission to Planet Earth and the
  Global Change Research Program.

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1995 (January) Robert Sadourny, Atmospheric
  Dynamics Expert, CNRS, Laboratoire de
  Meteorologie, stated
• - After several decades of meteorological
  observations from space, the wind field still
  appears as the main missing link in our observing
  machinery. This has important consequences, not
  only for numerical weather prediction, but also
  for our knowledge and monitoring of atmospheric
  dynamics and climate dynamics.
• 1995 (February) Thomas Tascione, Colonel, USAF
  Deputy Director of Weather, stated in a letter to
  Wayman Baker
• - Acquisition of wind data over data-sparse
  or data-denied areas could have significant
  operational military benefits.

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1995 (March) Joseph Cordes, Chairperson,
  Economics Department, George Washington
  University, in the Final Report to the NWS on the
  Economic Benefits and Costs of Developing and
  Deploying a Space-Based Wind Lidar, stated
• - . . . the estimated ratio of benefits to
  costs is just over 3 to 1. These results
  indicate that developing and deploying a wind
  lidar will provide projected tangible economic
  benefits well in excess of projected costs.
  Moreover, the results of the structured
  sensitivity analysis show that this broad
  conclusion is relatively unaffected by a fairly
  wide range of alternative assumptions about the
  magnitudes of both costs and tangible economic
  benefits.

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1995 (June) Air Force Report PL-TR-94-1067,
  stated
• - Knowledge of future weather conditions
  has always been an important military need. . .
  Wind data are used to derive flight and ship
  route information, icing areas, contrails, wind,
  turbulence, and temperature forecasts. For the
  war fighter (the user), wind speed and direction
  knowledge affects the accuracy of weapons and
  supply drops and is directly used in mission
  planning (route, time in route, and fuel
  required).
• 1995 (June) Excerpt from article published in
  the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
  Society, Baker et al., Lidar-Measured Winds from
  Space A Key Component for Weather and Climate
  Prediction, Vol. 76, 869 888
• - The first Intergovernmental Panel on
  Climate Change (IPCC) report assessed prospects
  for investigating climate change (IPCC 1990).
  The IPCC recommended that five of the most
  critical areas for intensive study are 1) control
  of the greenhouse gases by the earth system 2)
  control of radiation by clouds 3) precipitation
  and evaporation 4) ocean transport and storage
  of heat and 5) ecosystem processes. Wind data
  are fundamental to all these calculations.

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1995 First MACAWS flight with a pulsed, CO2
  lidar
• 1996 (January) NASA New Millennium Program
  Earth Orbiting Mission, Instrument Technology
  Workshops, Volume 1 Reports and Summaries
• - The panel agreed that tropospheric winds
  are the most significant unmet measurement need
  in EOS atmospheric science, and a DWL is uniquely
  capable of meeting the need. Transport is such a
  dominant mechanism in atmospheric science that
  the lack of global-scale three-dimensional wind
  field capability is a major gap.
• 1996 (June) NOAA/Integrated Program Office,
  Unaccommodated Environmental Data Records
  Technology Status and Promising Technological
  Areas
• - Direct tropospheric wind measurements
  would provide a greater impact on numerical
  weather prediction models than any other new
  space-based observation.

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1997 Wind profiles measured using the double
  edge technique with aerosols at 1064 nm at
  NASA/GSFC
• 1997 2-micron pulsed laser reaches 600 mJ
  (HoTmYLF,DP)
• 1997 (October) SPARCLE (2- micron Shuttle
  experiment) selected for a New Millennium Program
  (NMP) mission (pulsed, HOTmYLF)
• 1997 (November) NMP design study initiated for
  a Shuttle demonstration of direct detection DWL
  (Zephyr) to co-fly with SPARCLE
• 1998 (April) Successful completion of Zephyr
  PDR and NMP Technical Readiness Review
• 1998 (July) Zephyr not selected for
  implementation on NMP EO-2 due to budgetary
  constraints
• 1998 (September) Congressional earmark for a
  tropospheric wind data buy
• 1999 First airborne pulsed lidar measured winds
  with nadir conical scan (CO2)
• 1999 Molecular double edge wind measurements with
  the GLOW mobile direct detection lidar at 532 nm
  at GSFC

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1999 Stephen Mango, NPOESS Chief Scientist,
  NOAA/Integrated Program Office
• - The value of space-based tropospheric
  wind profile measurements cannot be
  overemphasized. At present, tropospheric wind
  profiles represent the number one unaccommodated
  data product requirement for the NPOESS program.
  We believe direct tropospheric wind profile
  measurements would provide a greater impact on
  NWP models, and therefore weather forecasting,
  than any other new space-based measurement.
• 1999 Art Stephenson, MSFC Center Director, in
  memo to Al Diaz, GSFC Center Director, discussing
  SPARCLE
• - As a result of these reviews, we have
  concluded that while the specifications for the
  lidar performance are being met or exceeded, the
  original budget and schedule commitments to
  achieve this mission cannot be realized.

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 1999 (July/August) Ghassem Asrar, NASA
  Associate Administrator, Office of Earth Science,
  stated in The Earth Observer
• - The most important new scientific
  observation required is tropospheric winds
  measured with an accuracy in the range of 1 3
  m/sec, with a resolution of 1 km vertically and
  100 km horizontally.
• 1999 ( October) SPARCLE de-selected
• 2000 (January) Dan Goldin, NASA Administrator,
  in an address to the 80th Annual Meeting of the
  American Meteorological Society, said
• - One challenge we havent been able to
  meet just yet is direct atmospheric wind
  measurements. . . Believe me, wed love to do
  tropospheric wind measurements.
• 2000 Lidar intercomparison campaign conducted
  at Intervale, NH, which included the GroundWinds
  New Hampshire aerosol and molecular fringe
  imaging direct detection DWL operating at 532 nm
  

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 2001 Global Tropospheric Wind Sounder (GTWS)
  Data Requirements Workshop held
• 2001 (September/October) ISAL IMDC point
  design for a GTWS direct detection DWL mission
  conducted at GSFC
• 2002 (February) ISAL IMDC point design for a
  GTWS coherent detection DWL lidar mission
  conducted at GSFC
• 2002 NASAs Laser Risk Reduction Project
  initiated
• 2002 Decision to deploy a direct detection DWL
  in space via ADM
• 2002 Aerosol and molecular fringe imaging
  direct detection DWL under development for
  GroundWinds Hawaii
• 2003 A 2-micron pulsed laser reaches 1 J
  (HOLuLF DP double pulsed)
• 2003 Decision to demonstrate a fringe imaging
  DWL in a down-viewing, scanning configuration via
  BalloonWinds
• 2003 First 2-micron DWL flown on the Twin Otter
  aircraft

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NPOESS Era 1994 Present(Cont.)

• 2005 (February) NPOESS DWL Mission Definition
  Team formed to develop a mission concept for a
  DWL on an NPOESS spacecraft as a P3I instrument
• 2005 (April) Executive Briefing presented to
  IPO management by Michael Hardesty entitled
  NPOESS P3I Space Demonstration of 3D Wind
  Observations Using DWL
• 2005 (April) NASA approved the GSFC and LaRC
  Instrument Incubator Proposals
• 2005 (May) Whitepapers entitled Providing
  Global Wind Profiles The Missing Link in
  Todays Observing System, Improved Weather
  Prediction, Climate Understanding, and Weather
  Hazard Mitigation through Global Profiling of
  Horizontal Winds with a pulsed Doppler Lidar
  System, and Space-based Doppler Winds LIDAR
  A Vital National Need were submitted to the
  National Academy of Sciences

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WindThe Final Frontier
Figure Courtesy of Michael Kavaya, NASA/LaRC