Integration of Doppler Wind Lidars in E-Profile wind profiling network

E-Profile is the EUMETNET Programme coordinating the measurements of vertical profiles of wind, aerosols and clouds from radars and lidars in Europe. The E-Profile wind network provides near real-time vertical profiles of wind from weather radars and dedicated wind profilers with the main goal to promote the usability of these data for operational meteorology and provide expertise to both the data provider and the end-user.

Ground-based scanning Doppler Wind Lidars (DWLs) are capable of measuring wind profiles in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) at a high spatial and temporal resolution and they have the potential to improve the short-term wind forecast. With the availability of commercial DWLs in the last decade, many meteorological services and scientific institutions are now operating such instruments or are planning to do so in the future in Europe.

To extend the benefit of these observations and promote data sharing, these instruments have recently been integrated in E-Profile wind profiling network. Using an open-source code developed at the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), instrument’s data from different manufacturers are processed in a harmonized way to provide 10 minutes averaged wind profiles in the ABL. Data are converted to BUFR and distributed in near real-time on the Global Telecommunication System (GTS), making them available globally for data assimilation. At the moment, 12 DWLs from 4 European countries are being processed operationally and more instruments are expected to join the network in 2025.

Here, we present the integration of DWL into the E-Profile wind network, its associated challenges and the requirements for the scan strategies. We also show comparisons at different sites against other wind profiling instruments (e.g. radar wind profilers) and against model data. Finally, we also discuss the future improvements to the network.