ISS/JEM-borne coherent Doppler lidar program to measure the wind from space

It is now believed that the global wind observation from space is crucially important for both Numerical Weather Prediction and the studies on the global climate model since the global data of the wind profile are not enough. The global tropospheric wind profiles with the sufficient accuracy for the NWP and the climate model can be measureed only by the space-borne coherent Doppler lidar. A program of Japan for development of the coherent Doppler lidar in space was started by CR1 from 1997 FY under the support of the Phase II studies of the Ground Research Announcement of NASDA. Objective of the program is to make a feasibility study on the coherent Doppler lidar for the Japanese Exposure Module (JEM) of the International Space Station (155). The ISS/JEM-borne cohrent Doppler lidar can measure tropospheric line-of-sight (LOS) winds from space in an accuracy to 1-2 m/s of the vertical resolution of about 1 km and the horizontal resolution 100kmx100km.