MACAWS: Multi-Center Airborne Coherent Atmospheric Wind Sensor

Summary

The Multicenter Airborne Coherent Atmospheric Wind Sensor (MACAWS), installed in the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center DC-8 Airborne Laboratory. Combines technology elements from the JPL ABL, the NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory (Boulder, Colo.) Windvan Doppler Lidar, and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, Ala.) Airborne Doppler Lidar System.

Managed by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Global Hydrology and Climate Center, MACAWS is a Doppler wind lidar instrument for airborne investigation of local- and meso-scale atmospheric dynamic phenomena, in addition to being a testbed for spaceborne Doppler lidar concept studies. Currently the only functioning instrument of its kind, it underwent inaugural flight trials during the month of September, 1995. Science investigations during this campaign tended to concentrate on planetary boundary layer flow dynamics - including flow over complex terrain, the sea breeze, coherent convective structures in the marine boundary layer, and the transport of pollutants.

During the summer of 1998 MACAWS participated in the Third Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX-3), where it demonstrated the first measurements of hurricane eyewall winds with an airborne Doppler lidar. Four Atlantic hurricanes were investigated in this manner during the CAMEX-3 campaign.