Assessing the quality of Aeolus wind over a tropical location (10.04 N, 76.9 E) using 205 MHz wind profiler radar

ABSTRACT

Aeolus is European Space Agency’s unique and novel wind measuring satellite mission providing near real-time wind profiles from near surface to an altitude of 30 km. This paper presents the validation of Aeolus wind profiles over Cochin (10.04° N, 76.9°E), India using the 205 MHz wind profile radar. The Aeolus wind profiles (baselines 10 and 11) have been validated for an altitude range of 1 to 18 km during June, 2019 to September, 2021. Aeolus Rayleigh wind for clear ($\mathrm{R}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{g}{\mathrm{h}}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}}$) and Mie wind for cloudy ($\mathrm{M}\mathrm{i}{\mathrm{e}}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{y}}$) show very good agreement with the radar wind profiles. The Pearson correlation coefficient between radar and Aeolus wind for $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{g}{\mathrm{h}}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}}$ and $\mathrm{M}\mathrm{i}{\mathrm{e}}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{y}}$ are 0.93 and 0.94, respectively. The systematic and random errors in $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{g}{\mathrm{h}}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}}$ are found to be −0.15 m ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ and 4.87 m ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, respectively, while these values are −0.06 m ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ and 3.68 m ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ for $\mathrm{M}\mathrm{i}{\mathrm{e}}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{y}}$. A detailed error characterization of Aeolus wind profiles with respect to radar is presented in this study. The bias in Aeolus wind is provided in terms of observation altitude, seasons, different windy conditions and ascending/descending orbits.

KEYWORDS:

• Aeolus
• 205 MHz radar
• tropics
• validation

Acknowledgement

The financial support provided by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India for the sustenance of the ST Radar Facility is greatly acknowledged. Roshny Antony would like to thank the Department of science and technology for their research support through WOS-A. Many thanks to Prof. Sheila Kirkwood for her inputs on Aeolus data reading. We thank the reviewers for their useful comments that have resulted in improving the content and quality of the paper.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.