IPETSUP The ESA Aeolus mission

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1 IPETSUP The ESA Aeolus mission Stephen English ECMWF 1 ECMWF February 9, 2019

2 Aeolus ESA Earth Explorer Core Mission Chosen in 1999 Part of ESA s Living Planet Programme Doppler wind lidar (DWL) payload Technology demonstration; designed to be a 3 year mission Mission status Launched on 22/8/2018! delayed by a decade First European lidar in space, after 20 years of development challenges First wind lidar in space First high-power UV lidar in space, with stringent frequency stability requirements Aeolus has been technically proven to work as the first wind lidar in space Over 4 months of winds data 2

3 L2 Met/PF commissioning Key milestones 22/8/2018: Aeolus launch 28/8/2018: ECMWF operational met files produced 3/9/2018: First L1B wind mode data available 3/9/2018: First L2B (HLOS winds) Earth Explorer data produced Earliest for any ESA mission! 12 days after launch! All valid L1B files received have been processed to L2B files within minutes 5/9/2018: First L2C data produced (wind vectors, using ECMWF background) 10/12/2018: Aeolus on in operational ECMWF NWP system, for monitoring Today: Already ~7 weeks of NWP parallel experimentation completed, already showing positive impact. Many issues identified and understood. Remarkable progress < 6 months after launch. 3

4 Reminder: why is Aeolus important Simulator input: HLOS winds ( truth ) Real observations assimilated at ECMWF Radiosondes Equatorial wave Mostly AMVs L2B product: Rayleigh HLOS winds L2B product: Mie HLOS winds Simulations suggest Aeolus will add data to capture wave features missed by current observations October 29, 2014 From Mike Rennie 4

5 Wind observations: what do we have? From Mike Rennie AMVs, Scatterometer, Radiosonde, Pilot, Aircraft all well known, none fully meet the requirement ~30 km Zonal mean: log 10 (number of obs per area) Zonal mean: assigned obs error (m/s) sondes sondes AMVs aircraft AMVs AMVs aircraft AMVs ~4-5 m/s ~6 m/s 0 km Aeolus wind errors are larger than conventional and scatterometer, but mostly smaller than AMVs

6 Status So far, so good: 1 st Level-2B wind product on 3/9/2018; All data processed successfully in NRT (mean timeliness of L1B files from ESA to ECMWF is 2.3 hours). We can measure winds from space! Data looks realistic! Data impact experiments already demonstrating Aeolus observations reduce forecast error. Some issues, as would be expected for highly innovative mission, but overall message is very positive. Real data 6

7 User readiness activities ESA-ESRIN will provide information to users via a website that is in the process of being setup. Documentation, tools and the data access are ready. This was tested at the CAL/VAL rehearsal workshop in 2017 and as part of the ground segment overall validation. These aspects adhere to ESA standards which are consistent with CGMS best practice guidelines. ESA have set aside resources for user support. The level of resource is based on experience from other missions as well as estimations from Aeolus experts. User queries will be handled by an ESA helpdesk. The Aeolus MAG meeting in January 2019 and the forthcoming Aeolus Cal/Val & Science workshop in March 2019 will also discuss user support to address any open issues. October 29,

8 Data Dissemination Aeolus has entered Phase E2 (equivalent of operational phase, given this is a research mission) on Thursday 31 st January. Release of data to the world will happen after the Cal/Val workshop, in Q All Aeolus products will then be provided in Earth Explorer format to the world and most of these will be available in NRT Aeolus data dissemination facility Data will also be forwarded to EUMETSAT who will then distribute it to the world via GTS and EUMETCast. October 29,

9 Data impact demonstration Leading national as well as international weather centers, such as for example ECMWF, MeteoFrance, KNMI, DWD, NOAA, Met Office, JMA and CMA, plan to evaluate data and potential impact. ECMWF already demonstrating positive impact from Aeolus data in research experiments ESA will host an Aeolus Cal/Val and Science workshop in March 2019 plan the assimilation and impact activities for Aeolus up to the WIGOS meeting in May Scientific exploitation and NWP impact activities will be planned at Aeolus annual workshops. It is anticipated that further information will be presented to CGMS in 2019 meeting. Also note that ESA have received a formal letter from the DG of EUMETSAT confirming EUMETSAT s intention to move programmatically forward with the preparation of a POTENTIAL operational Doppler wind liar mission based on Aeolus. This should further encourage a broad engagement with Aeolus, as its increasingly unlikely to be a one off. October 29,

10 Conclusion The plans for user support for the Aeolus mission appear to be thorough and complete, and IPETSUP-5 is invited to comment and to consider additional steps to ensure the maximum possible uptake of the remarkable opportunities arising from this mission. October 29,