Harmonised boundary layer wind profile dataset from six ground-based doppler wind lidars in a transect across Paris (France) from 2022-06-10 to 2024-03-05

Quality controlled and harmonized dataset on wind direction and wind speed profiles from ground-based Doppler Wind LIDARS (DWL), deployed in a multi-institutional effort along a 40 km transect through the centre of the Paris Metropolitan area (France) for the period 2022-06-10 to 2024-03-05.

The dataset, its derivation, quality control and evaluation against radiosondes and in-situ observations are decribed in the following manuscript:

W Morrison W, Looschelders D, Cespedes J, Claxton B, Drouin M-A, Dupont J-C , Faucheux A, Haeffelin M, C Holst, Kotthaus S, Masson V, McGregor J, Price J, Zeeman M, Grimmond S, Christen A. (2025): Harmonised boundary layer wind profile dataset from six ground-based doppler wind lidars in a transect across Paris, France, prepared for Earth Systems Science Data.

Preview graphs for the full dataset on a daily basis (wind speed, wind direction, wind barbs) are available here:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15090857

Continuous data availability consists of

Extensive Operation Period (EOP) with 3 DWLs from June 10, 2022 – March 05, 2024

Two Intensive Observation Periods (IOPs) with six DWL over 9 weeks in September 2023 to December 2023. 

Detailed data availability per site along with weather conditions and classifications can be found in the files "paris_dwl_L3V1.39_data_availability_weather.pdf" and "paris_dwl_L3V1.39_data_availability_weather.xlsx".

Data are provided in daily NetCDF files in two temporal resolutions of 10 minutes ("_600s") and 1 hour ("_3600s"). All dates / times are in UTC. Files are packaged by year and month using the following name convention "paris_dwl_L3VX.XX_YYYY_MM_RRRRs.tar.gz", where X.XX is the version number, YYYY refers to the year, (2022-2024) MM to the month of the year (01-12), and RRRR is the time resolution with "600s" and "3600s".

NetCDF files contain the following fields:

standard_name (Variable name)
Dimensions
Description

time
1
Timestamp: end of time interval. 600 s and 3600 s time intervals are provided, in separate data files (600 s e.g. 00:00:01 → 00:10:00 and 3600 s e.g. 00:00:01 → 01:00:00). All variables are harmonised to this resolution as averages (e.g. wind) or percentage occurrence (e.g. flags) 

altitude
1 
Altitude of centre of each measurement gate above mean sea level (m). Harmonised gates are 25 m from 0 – 6500 m with values linearly interpolated to this resolution 

station
1
Measurement location identifier (see table below), all are listed even if no valid data are retrieved during the file’s date. 

eastward_wind (u) 
3
Mean eastward wind component (m s-1) using all valid samples within time interval 

northward_wind (v) 
3
Mean northward wind component (m s-1) using all valid samples within time interval 

wind_speed (ws) 
3
Horizontal wind speed calculated from eastward_wind and northward_wind (m s-1) 

wind_from_direction (wd) 
3
Horizontal wind direction calculated from eastward_wind and northward_wind (degrees from true north) 

system_id 
2
Serial number of sensor deployed at station at a given time 

latitude (station_lat) 
1
Latitude of the measurement station (degrees, decimal, WGS84) 

longitude (station_lon) 
1
Longitude of the measurement station (degrees, decimal, WGS84) 

station_altitude 

1 

Measurement station height above ground level (m).  

Ground level is the “street” level so if the station is on a rooftop, the height will accounts for the building height and any mounting structure 

station_height 

1 
Average height of station above sea level (reference_geoid: EGM96) (m) 

n_rays_in_scan 

2 

Number of rays in a scan. e.g. 12 for a VAD scan that has 12 samples within one scan 

n_pulses 

2 

Number of pulses in a given ray. More pulses, the higher the integration time 

raw_gate_length 

2 

Gate length prior to L3 aggregation (m) 

flag_suspect_retrieval_warn 

3 

Percentage of values within time interval with retrieval warning not linked to low signal (flag_low_signal_warn_pc) or out of range (flag_ws_out_of_range_removed_pc). Retrievals retained but treat with caution 

flag_suspect_retrieval_removed 

3 

Percentage of values within time interval with retrieval error not linked to low signal (flag_low_signal_warn_pc) or out of range (flag_ws_out_of_range_removed_pc). Data removed 

flag_low_signal_warn 

3 

Percentage of values within time interval with a low SNR. Retrievals retained but treat with caution 

flag_low_signal_removed 

3 

Percentage of values within time interval with a low SNR. Retrieval rejected 

flag_ws_out_of_range_removed 

3 

Percentage of values within time interval with wind speed outside reasonable retrievable range (> 60 m s-1) (i.e. removed). Evaluated after all other retrieval QC