Evaluating Climate Models: The ARM Data-Oriented Metrics and Diagnostics Toolkit

By exploiting molecular scattering in clear
air, Aeolus addresses the increasing demand
for vertically well-resolved and accurate wind
profiles, including over the oceans, tropics,
and Southern Hemisphere—regions largely
void of direct wind profiles.
NWP skill for the tropics (and polar regions)
lags that of the midlatitudes. In cloudy
regions, such as the intertropical convergence
zone, the observational coverage of wind and
humidity profiles needs to be improved, in
particular, to better depict the water cycle and
energy balance.
The tropics demonstrate that there are still
major limitations and challenges in our abil-
ity to model key atmospheric dynamical pro-
cesses. Wind shear in the equatorial region is
poorly modeled, and more wind observations
at all levels of the troposphere and strato-
sphere would help improve prediction. Poor
observation of tropical circulation also affects
modeling and prediction of the stratosphere
and high-latitude weather. DWL observations
are needed to obtain the required spatial (par-
ticularly vertical) coverage to capture tropical
dynamical weather regimes.
Satellite wind observations also constrain
atmospheric transport, mixing, and disper-
sion, and inform applications determining the
sources of atmospheric constituents, such as
desert dust and volcanic ash, as well as observ-
ing transport of gases, such as carbon dioxide
and ozone in the troposphere and stratosphere.