Search

This paper describes the technical specifications of the extensions made to the middle-atmospheric lidar facility at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn, Germany (54.12° N, 11.77° E). The upgrade complements the existing daylight-capable Rayleigh–Mie–Raman (RMR) temperature lidar with a nighttime-only RMR wind–temperature lidar. The new system comprises an independent lidar with laser, telescopes, and detectors, which is synchronized with and adapted to the (old) temperature lidar. As a result, with the combination of RMR lidars the atmosphere is probed with three (vertical and tilted) beams. This work intends to highlight the recent innovations in the construction of a Doppler–Rayleigh lidar system using the single-edge iodine-cell technique, which allows for the simultaneous measurement of wind, temperature, and aerosols. We will detail supporting subsystems that allow for a high degree of lidar automation and concisely provide key technical information about the system that will support readers in the development of additional RMR wind–temperature lidar systems. We show an example of time-resolved temperature and wind soundings reaching up to ∼ 90 km. These data agree well with ECMWF-IFS profiles between 35 and ∼ 50 km but show a much larger variability above. In the companion article, we will present the algorithm design and uncertainty budgets associated with the data processing chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We connect tropospheric deep convective events over western Europe, as measured by the 8.1 µ m radiance observations from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, to horizontal brightness temperature variance in the 4.3 µ m AIRS channel (maximum sensitivity at around 40 km) and temperature perturbations in vertical lidar profiles (between 33-43 km) over Kühlungsborn, Germany (54.12 ∘ N, 11.77 ∘ E). Although the lidar and AIRS are sensitive to different parts of the gravity wave spectrum, they both capture the same peaks in gravity wave activity tied to convection. This suggests that a broad range of vertical wavelengths is present in the convective gravity waves. To account for wave propagation conditions from the troposphere to the stratosphere, we also consider the horizontal winds in the troposphere and stratosphere using the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) operational analysis. In this work, we highlight sporadic peaks in gravity wave activity in summer greatly exceeding those typical of summer, which is generally a season with lower wave activity compared to winter. Although these events are present in roughly half of the years (between 2003 and 2019), we focus our study on two case study years (2014 and 2015). These case study years were chosen because of the high cadence of lidar soundings close in time to the convective events. These events, while sporadic, could contribute significantly to the zonal mean momentum budget and are not accounted for in weather and climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the technical specifications of the extensions made to the middle atmospheric lidar facility at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn, Germany (54.12°N, 11.77°E). The upgrade complements the existing, vertically pointing daylight-capable Rayleigh-Mie-Raman (RMR) temperature lidar with a 2-beam, nighttime only RMR wind-temperature lidar. The 2-beam system comprises an independent lidar with laser, telescopes, and detectors, which is synchronized with and adapted to the temperature lidar. This work intends to highlight the recent innovations in the construction of a 3-beam Doppler-Rayleigh wind lidar system using the single-edge Iodine-cell technique, which allows for the simultaneous measurement of wind, temperature, and aerosols. We will detail supporting subsystems that allow for a high degree of lidar automation and concisely provide key technical information about the system that will support readers in the development of additional Doppler-Rayleigh wind lidar systems. We show an example of time-resolved temperature and wind soundings reaching up to ∼90 km. These data agree well with ECMWF-IFS profiles between 35 and ∼50 km but show a much larger variability above. In the companion article, we will present the algorithm design and uncertainty budgets associated with the data processing chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We connect tropospheric deep convective events over Western Europe, as measured by the 8.1 µm radiance observations from NASA’s Aqua satellite’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), to horizontal brightness temperature variance in the 4 µm AIRS channel (maximum sensitivity at around 40 km) and temperature perturbations in vertical lidar profiles (between 33-43 km) over Kühlungsborn, Germany (54.12◦N, 11.77◦E). To account for wave propagation conditions from the troposphere to the stratosphere, we also consider the horizontal winds in the troposphere and stratosphere using ECMWF. In this work, we highlight sporadic peaks in gravity wave activity in summer greatly exceeding those typical of summer, which is generally a season with lower wave activity compared to winter. Although these events are present in roughly half of the years (between 2003 and 2019), we focus our study on two case study years (2014 and 2015). These case study years were chosen because of the high cadence of lidar soundings close in time to the convective events. These events, while sporadic, could contribute significantly to the zonal mean momentum budget and are not accounted for in weather and climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]