The Open Atmospheric Science Journal

2009, 3 : 138-146
Published online 2009 June 18. DOI: 10.2174/1874282300903010138
Publisher ID: TOASCJ-3-138

Aviation Applications of the Pulsed Doppler LIDAR – Experience in Hong Kong

P.W. Chan
Hong Kong Observatory, 134A Nathan Road, Hong Kong, China.

ABSTRACT

The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) introduced a Doppler LIDAR to the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) in 2002, the first LIDAR for aviation alerting services in the world. Since then, HKO has developed a number of weather products based on the LIDAR’s velocity and backscatter power data. LIDAR is found to provide crucial information in a wide variety of aviation applications. This paper gives a review of the experience in Hong Kong in the development of aviation-related weather products using the LIDAR data. Applications include: automatic windshear alerting from the HKO-developed glide-path scans, detection of low-level turbulence, 2D wind retrieval for intense convective events from LIDAR-radar dual Doppler analysis, 3D wind retrieval from a single LIDAR for terrain-disrupted airflow, visibility map based on backscatter power distribution in conical scans, and mixing-height monitoring in vertical scans.