AEOLUS

ESA's Earth Explorer, Aeolus, was launched into space on 22 August 2018. This new satellite type provides novel global observations of wind profiles from the surface up to 30 km altitude. Although there are several ways of measuring wind from a satellite, Aeolus utilises the active Doppler Wind Lidars (DWL) method. This is currently the only technology that can provide direct wind profile observations in clear air, inside thin clouds and aerosol layers and on top of thick clouds globally. In addition, a DWL provides information on cloud top heights and the vertical distribution of thin clouds and aerosol. An improved knowledge of Earth's wind fields will lead to progress in atmospheric dynamics research and weather forecasting. Forecast impact experiments by a number of leading meteorological institutes across the world have shown that Aeolus observations lead to an improvement of operational weather forecasting. The experiments show that the impact is largest in the tropics, southern..