Upper air atmospheric wind and temperature
information is crucial for numerical weather prediction (NWP) and
nowcasting. A novel method to measure wind and temperature is
related to tracking and ranging by an enhanced surveillance (EHS) air
traffic control (ATC) radar.
A KLM Airbus A330-200 lands at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in The Netherlands
Modern aircraft carry sensors to measure the Mach number (using
pitotstatic probe) and the total air temperature (T). An EHS
radar interrogates all aircraft in sight in a selective mode (Mode-S),
on which the aircraft replies with a message containing, for example,
magnetic heading, airspeed and Mach number. From this information
wind and temperature can be extracted.
Schematic representation of wind derivation from aircraft flight
information. The wind vector (black) is deduced from the difference
between the ground track vector (red), the orientation (heading) and
speed of the aircraft relative to the air (dark blue). The ground
track vector is constructed from ground speed and true track
angle. Note that both heading and ground track angle are defined with
respect to true north