On the Potential Application to Wind Detection of Canadian HAWC Mission with NASA’s Atmosphere Observing System AOS
A consortium of 14 Canadian universities is actively involved in the development of an international satellite mission jointly with CSA and NASA, the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) aimed to monitoring Aerosol, Clouds, Convection and Precipitation. The three Canadian instruments are: TICFIRE (Thin Ice Clouds and Far IR Emissions), ALI (Aerosol Limb Imager) and SHOW (Spatial Heterodyne Observation of Water vapour). The system will have 4 satellites on 2 orbits, a high polar sun synchronous orbit including TICFIRE, ALI, SHOW with other active (A lidar, possibly HSRL and Doppler Radar, possibly dual-frequency) and passive (Multi-angle polarimeter and Microwave Radiometer) instruments and two other satellites on an inclined orbit for observing diurnal variation of clouds with each a Microwave Radiometer to perform Delta-t measurements and one Ku Wide Swath Doppler Radar on one satellite and a Backscatter Lidar on the other. Although the main objectives of the mission are focusing on aerosols, clouds and precipitation vertical structure, their interactions and their vast sets of properties, the mission could offer some means of inferring winds, including vertical wind profiles. For instance, the double satellite (Delta-t) on inclined orbit will probe subtle change of clouds over 2 minutes, or the Doppler Radars on both orbits could add potential value in cloud motion or the combination of multi-angle polarimeter view with nadir and limb instruments might be exploited to constrain winds as a synergetic product. It is timely to present this future mission and explore how it could benefit to the observation of winds for science and operational applications, and, conversely, how innovative methods could help to constrain the AOS retrievals.
