the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 19 Aug 2026
The NASA Aerosol Wind Profiler Doppler Wind Lidar, Part I: Instrument Description and Airborne Demonstration
Abstract. There is a well-recognized need for new orbital 3-dimensional (3-D) wind measurements to improve weather prediction and understanding of atmospheric processes. A new airborne, coherent-detection Doppler wind lidar system called the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP) has recently been developed at NASA to address community wind measurement needs and demonstrate technologies needed for an orbital wind lidar mission, leveraging decades of NASA Langley Research Center and industry partner experience with wind lidar instrumentation. This paper describes the AWP instrument, data collection methods, and 3-D wind profile retrieval methods applied to data from its first science campaigns that occurred from September–November 2024. Additional demonstrations of AWP observations and their validation are provided in Part II of this paper.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-4872', Benjamin Witschas, 02 Sep 2026
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-4872', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 Sep 2026
The article "The NASA Aerosol Wind Profiler Doppler Wind Lidar, Part I: Instrument Description and Airborne Demonstration" by Kristopher Bedka et al. comprehensively presents the latest developments in coherent Doppler wind lidar at NASA Langley Research Center, which led to the development of the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP) lidar. The paper provides a detailed description of the instrument, including laser modules, electronics, alignment, and mechanical systems.
It also provides valuable insight into the data-processing chain and the lidar configuration used to reconstruct 2D and 3D wind fields from an aircraft. The discussion of how different parameters can be adjusted to obtain higher-resolution or less noisy measurements depending on atmospheric conditions is particularly useful.
The analysis of a flight conducted in October 2024 is very interesting. It illustrates the type of measurements provided by the lidar while also showing observations of several atmospheric phenomena, including the jet stream, tropopause variations, and atmospheric gravity waves. The lidar results are compared with independent measurements, including dropsonde profiling systems and satellite water-vapor brightness imagery, with very good agreement. Comparisons with atmospheric model results are also presented.
Overall, I found the article very complete and informative. It provides useful context, detailed technical information, and representative measurements from an airborne coherent Doppler wind lidar. I believe it will be valuable to the scientific community, particularly for future projects involving spaceborne coherent Doppler wind lidar.
I therefore recommend publication of the article. I would nevertheless appreciate it if the authors could address the attached comments and questions, which are mainly intended to clarify certain points and further improve the clarity of the manuscript.
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The manuscript “The NASA Aerosol Wind Profiler Doppler Wind Lidar, Part I: Instrument Description and Airborne Demonstration” by Bedka et al. presents a comprehensive overview of coherent-detection Doppler wind lidar systems that have recently been developed by NASA, in particular the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP), to demonstrate the readiness of this technology for space applications. Together with descriptions of the hardware of the respective systems, the wind retrieval method used is also explained and demonstrated by means of first airborne measurements performed in 2024. The paper is very informative and well structured. It therefore recommended for publication after revision according to the minor comments given in the attached .pdf file.