It has been proven that assimilating winds from the Aeolus global Doppler wind lidar would enhance the predictive skill of weather forecast models. In this study, we use a series of Observing System Experiments to examine how operational winds and Aeolus winds impact Environment and Climate Change Canada’s global forecast system over the data-sparse Arctic region. Aeolus winds improve the tropospheric wind and temperature forecasts by about 0.7 to 0.9% of error reduction (a 15-20% effect compared to the impact of operational wind products), while having little impact on the specific humidity field. In particular, Aeolus winds have an impact on forecasts of strong wind days on the wind and temperature fields that is double the impact of the forecasts of less intense wind days and provides a disproportionate improvement to forecasts on these days compared to other operational wind measurements. These findings suggest significant potential for global doppler wind lidar observations to enhance severe-weather prediction in polar regions.