https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2020-198 Preprint. Discussion started: 25 May 2020 c Author(s) 2020. CC BY 4.0 License. Validation of Aeolus wind products above the Atlantic Ocean Holger Baars1, Alina Herzog1,2,3, Birgit Heese1, Kevin Ohneiser1,2, Karsten Hanbuch1, Julian Hofer1, Zhenping Yin1,4,5, Ronny Engelmann1, and Ulla Wandinger1 1Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Leipzig, Germany 2Institute for Meteorology, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany 3now at: LEM-Software, Ingenieurbüro für Last- und Energiemanagement, Leipzig, Germany 4School of Electronic Information, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China 5Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and Geodesy, Ministry of Education, Wuhan, China Correspondence: Holger Baars (
[email protected]) Abstract. In August 2018, the first Doppler wind lidar in space called ALADIN was launched on-board the satellite Aeolus by the European Space Agency ESA. Aeolus measures horizontal wind profiles in the troposphere and lower stratosphere on a global basis. Furthermore, profiles of aerosol and cloud properties can be retrieved via the high-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) technique. The Aeolus mission is supposed to improve the quality of weather forecasts and the understanding of 5 atmospheric processes. We used the chance of opportunity to perform a unique validation of the wind products of Aeolus by utilizing the RV Po- larstern cruise PS116 from Bremerhaven to Cape Town in November/December 2018. Due to concerted course modifications, six direct intersections with the Aeolus ground track could be achieved on the Atlantic Ocean, west of the African continent. For the validation of the Aeolus wind products, we launched additional radiosondes and used the EARLINET/ACTRIS lidar 10 PollyXT for atmospheric scene analysis.