AOPP Seminar - From Instruments to Insight: Finding Dynamical Experiments in Operational Systems

Observational atmospheric physics is rarely constrained by purpose-built experiments; instead, we rely on measurements made using systems designed for other purposes, from numerical weather prediction to societal infrastructure. When interpreted carefully, however, these systems can provide quantitative constraints on circulation, shear, and forcing that extend well beyond their original design remit. In this seminar, I will present three recent studies in which my team and I repurposed measurements made for one objective to derive new constraints on atmospheric dynamics, with both forecasting and societal implications. First, I will show how commercial transatlantic flight times can be used to quantify the influence of large-scale climate variability on real-world transport. By analysing multi-year flight-time records originally collected for atmospheric-chemistry studies, we were able to isolate the dynamical contribution of variability in the North Atlantic jet to eastbound and westbound journey times, and assess how this projects onto fuel use and flight duration. Secondly, I will describe how the Aeolus Doppler wind lidar - designed to provide operational tropospheric wind data for assimilation - was used to investigate wave generation at low altitude and the evolution of the quasi-biennial oscillation in the stratosphere. Finally, I will show how operational radiances from the AIRS nadir sounder can be reinterpreted to characterise and quantify gravity-wave driving of the global circulation. Taken together, these examples illustrate how operational measurement systems, when analysed in the appropriate dynamical framework, can be transformed into experiments that constrain atmospheric behaviour across scales.