Wind profile from Aeolus 6 May 2020

Carrying breakthrough laser technology, the Aeolus satellite – an ESA Earth Explorer mission – was launched in August 2018. It is the first satellite mission to profile Earth’s winds directly from space. Its data are not only being used to understand how wind, pressure, temperature and humidity are interlinked to contribute to climate research, but are also now being used in near-realtime for weather forecasting. This image is an example of Level-2B Rayleigh wind velocity in metres per second over Europe on 6 May 2020 at 06:00 UTC. The image was produced with the Aeolus virtual research platform VirES.