EFD Center Seminar: "Velocity Field Retrievals Using Data Assimilation of Lidar Data"

Velocity Field Retrievals Using Data Assimilation of Lidar Data 

by 

Shantanu Kongara 

Doppler lidars have the ability to scan large volumes of the atmosphere at very high spatial and temporal resolutions, but the observed velocity data is limited to the velocity component in the direction of the lidar beam only. Therefore the retrieval of velocity vector fields is of prime importance for an effective knowledge of the flow fields in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). Several methods like the Velocity Azimuthal Display (VAD) and the Dual Doppler Retrieval have been developed to retrieve 2-D vector fields from radial velocity data. This talk will focus on 2D vector retrievals using techniques adopted from radar processing. An introduction to Data Assimilation and its adaptation to process lidar data will be presented. A few results using simulated lidar data to test the method will also be presented.