(OL5) Science Challenges for the CEDAR (Lidar) Observing Community (Final Report)

Conveners:
Richard Collins (GI-UAF) (rlc@gi.alaska.edu)
HanLi Liu (NCAR-HAO) (liuh@ucar.edu),

2004 Thursday 01 July 0945-1145 AM

This panel workshop was attended by over 50 CEDAR researchers. The workshop objective was to: Identify and prioritize scientific questions concerning the middle atmosphere that can be addressed by lidar. The workshop featured presentations by five panelists;

1. Stephen Eckermann: Gravity waves in the middle atmosphere: Science questions and future directions
2. Ruth Lieberman: Lidar support for studies of global MLT waves
3. Daniel Marsh: Chemistry of the middle atmosphere
4. Andrew Gerrard: Towards the realization of thermospheric lidar systems
5. Alan Liu: Multi-instrument synergism and clustering

All of the panelists discussed the role that lidars might play in providing high-resolution measurements of winds, temperatures and constituents that could advance current understanding of the Earth's middle atmosphere. They agreed that these measurements are critical for understanding the distribution of minor species, synoptic-scale weather events, tidal and planetary wave variability, wave-driven fluxes, and non-migrating tides. The panelists noted that in addition to wind and temperature measurements, the measurement of minor species distributions is an important benchmark for modeling both diffusive and turbulent transport. The panelists also noted that current model simulations contain ambiguities as they can yield similar results with packages that are based on different physical mechanisms.

The panelists urged the CEDAR lidar community to;

• Improve communication between researchers in the CEDAR modeling and observing communities. They encouraged researchers in both communities to better define complementary simulations and observations that answer definitive questions (e.g. flux measurements, wave and tidal characteristics, minor species distributions, wave-breaking parameterizations).
• Address challenges in assimilating satellite and model results and high-lighted the contribution of ground-based observations to the understanding of non-migrating tides and planetary waves. They encouraged researchers to develop assimilation methods that can combine measurements from ground-based networks with measurements from satellites and global models and encouraged observers to better coordinate regional observing strategies.
• Extend the scope of current lidar measurements beyond the mesopause region to cover the entire middle and upper atmosphere.
• Develop both single-site advanced instrument clusters (of lidars, radars, photometers, and imagers) that can yield specific measurements (e.g. wave-driven fluxes) to and multi-site chains of (perhaps less-advanced) but cross-calibrated lidars that yield measurements over planetary scales (e.g. temperature structure of non-migrating tides and planetary waves).

PDF copies of the panelist presentations can be obtained from the chairs by contacting them at (rlc@gi.alaska.edu) or (liuh@ucar.edu), or clicking here.