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The Aeolus atmospheric wind mission is developed in the framework of Earth Explorer missions, which address key scientific challenges identified by the science community and demonstrate breakthrough technology in observing techniques.

The Aeolus satellite carries just one large instrument – a Doppler wind lidar called Aladin which probes the lowermost 30 km of the atmosphere to measure the winds sweeping around our planet.

The Aeolus+ Innovation initiative motivation is to maximize the potential of the first-ever satellite to directly observe wind profiles from space by making use of its Doppler shift information on atmospheric dynamics and particles advected by wind and its UV lidar signal.

The project aims at developing a solid scientific basis for the application of Aeolus data within the context of novel scientific and operational applications. A number of novel products and retrieval methods that exploit the potential of the Aeolus mission’s capabilities beyond its primary objectives will be developed. In addition strategic actions will be defined to foster a transition of the target methods and models developed in this project from research to operational activities.

Six themes have been selected for development:

  • LISA: Lidar measurements to Identify Streamers and analyze Atmospheric waves - Develop Aeolus products to study atmospheric streamer events.
    • Consortium: DLR (Germany) and CAS (Czech Republic).
    • The activity was kicked off in December 2020
  • NEWTON: Improvements of dust aerosol forecast - Improvement of short-term dust forecasts through assimilation of Aeolus winds.
    • Consortium: NOA (Greece), CuI (Cyprus).
    • The activity was kicked off in December 2020.
  • SWAILS+: Studies on Wind and Aerosol Information from Lidar Surface returns - Derive ocean surface wind product from Aeolus observations.
    • Consortium: KNMI (The Netherlands).
    • The activity was kicked off in December 2020.
  • Sea-Flect: Ocean Surface Wind from Aeolus Sea Surface - Define conditions where ocean surface wind products can be retrieved from Aeolus observations, and define, calibrate and validate a novel wind speed retrieval method.
    • Consortium: Verisk Analytics (GmbH) (Europe, US), Hermess (The Netherlands), Informus (Germany).
    • The activity was kicked off in January 2021.
  • COLOR: CDOM-proxy retrieval from aeOLusObseRvations - Study whether in-water products can be retrieved from Aeolus sub-surface returns for indirect Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM) determination.
    • Consortium: CNR-ISMAR, University of Basilicata (UNIBAS), AEQUORA, SERCO (all from Italy).
    • The activity was kicked off in February 2021.
  • Ocean sub-surface products and applications - Demonstrate potential of Aeolus to measure ocean subsurface particulate backscattering and diffuse attenuation coefficient parameters in the UV. Potential to estimate biogeochemical parameters linked to ocean color and ocean carbon cycle (POC, Cphyto, CDOM).
    • Consortium: Noveltis (France), CNRS-LOG (France).
    • The activity was kicked off in February 2021.