Airborne Doppler Lidar Wind Field Measurements

Abstract

A coherent Doppler lidar has been used in an aircraft to measure the 2-dimensional wind field in a number of different atmospheric situations. The lidar, a pulsed CO₂ system, was installed in the NASA Convair 990. Galileo II, and flown in a summer field program that included flights in California, in Oklahoma at the National Severe Storms Laboratory, and in Montana at the Cooperative Convective Precipitation Experiment (CCOPE). This paper provides a brief description of the instrumentation and summarizes the research flights. Examples of some of the results are given along with plans for future use of the lidar.