An Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) to Assess the Impact of Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) Measurements on the Numerical Simulation of a Tropical Cyclone

The importance of wind observations has been recognized for many years. However, wind observations—especially three-dimensional global wind measurements—are very limited. A satellite-based Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) is proposed to measure three-dimensional wind profiles using remote sensing techniques. Assimilating these observations into a mesoscale model is expected to improve the performance of the numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. In order to examine the potential impact of the DWL three-dimensional wind profile observations on the numerical simulation and prediction of tropical cyclones, a set of observing simulation system experiments (OSSEs) is performed using the advanced research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and its three-dimensional variational (3DVAR) data assimilation system. Results indicate that assimilating the DWL wind observations into the mesoscale numerical model has significant potential for improving tropical cyclone track and intensity forecasts.