Browsing by Subject "Atmospheric turbulence"

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A mobile, scanning eye-safe lidar for the study of atmospheric aerosol particles and transport processes in the lower troposphere
(2009) Pal, Sandip; Wulfmeyer, Volker
A high-power eye-safe scanning aerosol lidar system in the ultraviolet wavelength region is introduced for the study of the optical properties of aerosol particles and transport processes in the atmosphere, especially in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). This system operates with an average power of 9 W in combination with a 40-cm scanner with a speed of up to 10° s-1. A modified version of the lidar inversion algorithm is developed for the retrieval of optical properties of aerosols from scanning lidar measurements. The lidar data can be analyzed with previously unachieved temporal and spatial resolution of 0.03 s and 3 m, respectively.
A scanning eye-safe rotational Raman lidar in the ultraviolet for measurements of tropospheric temperature fields
(2009) Radlach, Marcus; Wulfmeyer, Volker
Within the frame of the virtual Institute COSI-TRACKS the first scanning rotational Raman lidar has been developed and deployed successfully in two large field campaigns. This has allowed new investigations of the convective boundary layer and contributed to studies on the initiation of convection during the PRINCE campaign (PRediction, Identification and trackiNg of Convective cElls) in July 2006 and the COPS experiment (Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study) from June to August 2007. The University of Hohenheim rotational Raman lidar was deployed in both these campaigns on Hornisgrinde (48.61 °N, 8.20 °E, 1161 m above sea level), the highest peak in the Northern Black Forest in southwest Germany. The lidar provides measurements of atmospheric temperature fields in the troposphere with high spatial and temporal resolution at day and night. Daytime scanning temperature measurements within a range of 3 km using a temporal resolution of 169 s and a moving average of 300 m in range show statistical temperature uncertainties of less than 1 K while pointing at 21 directions. Temperature uncertainties of less than 1 K are achieved during nighttime up to a range of 8 km using a temporal resolution of 3 minutes and a range resolution of 300 m. The lidar resolves also turbulence in the convective boundary layer, e.g., at 470 m height with a temporal resolution of 10 s and statistical uncertainties of only 0.41 K. In addition to temperature, also the particle backscatter coefficient and the particle extinction coefficient are measured independently. The instrument operates with a primary wavelength of 355 nm. This has instrumental advantages compared to 532 nm but also yields eye-safety beyond a range of 500 m which facilitates the deployment. Highly efficient spectral separation of the atmospheric backscatter signals is performed by a polychromator with narrow-band interference filters in a sequential setup. The spectral characteristics of these filters were optimized with respect to high measurement performance in the daytime planetary boundary layer and the lower free troposphere. Pioneering measurements of the 2-dimensional temperature distribution in the lower troposphere in the vicinity of a mountain ridge are presented.
Profiling the molecular destruction rates of temperature and humidity as well as the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation in the convective boundary layer
(2024) Wulfmeyer, Volker; Senff, Christoph; Späth, Florian; Behrendt, Andreas; Lange, Diego; Banta, Robert M.; Brewer, W. Alan; Wieser, Andreas; Turner, David D.
A simultaneous deployment of Doppler, temperature, and water-vapor lidars is able to provide profiles of molecular destruction rates and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation in the convective boundary layer (CBL). Horizontal wind profiles and profiles of vertical wind, temperature, and moisture fluctuations are combined, and transversal temporal autocovariance functions (ACFs) are determined for deriving the dissipation and molecular destruction rates. These are fundamental loss terms in the TKE as well as the potential temperature and mixing ratio variance equations. These ACFs are fitted to their theoretical shapes and coefficients in the inertial subrange. Error bars are estimated by a propagation of noise errors. Sophisticated analyses of the ACFs are performed in order to choose the correct range of lags of the fits for fitting their theoretical shapes in the inertial subrange as well as for minimizing systematic errors due to temporal and spatial averaging and micro- and mesoscale circulations. We demonstrate that we achieve very consistent results of the derived profiles of turbulent variables regardless of whether 1 or 10 s time resolutions are used. We also show that the temporal and spatial length scales of the fluctuations in vertical wind, moisture, and potential temperature are similar with a spatial integral scale of ≈160 m at least in the mixed layer (ML). The profiles of the molecular destruction rates show a maximum in the interfacial layer (IL) and reach values of ϵm≃7×10-4 g2 kg-2 s-1 for mixing ratio and ϵθ≃1.6×10-3 K2 s-1 for potential temperature. In contrast, the maximum of the TKE dissipation is reached in the ML and amounts to ≃10-2 m2 s-3. We also demonstrate that the vertical wind ACF coefficient kw∝w′2‾ and the TKE dissipation ϵ∝w′2‾3/2. For the molecular destruction rates, we show that ϵm∝m′2‾w′2‾1/2 and ϵθ∝θ′2‾w′2‾1/2. These equations can be used for parameterizations of ϵ, ϵm, and ϵθ. All noise error bars are derived by error propagation and are small enough to compare the results with previous observations and large-eddy simulations. The results agree well with previous observations but show more detailed structures in the IL. Consequently, the synergy resulting from this new combination of active remote sensors enables the profiling of turbulent variables such as integral scales, variances, TKE dissipation, and the molecular destruction rates as well as deriving relationships between them. The results can be used for the parameterization of turbulent variables, TKE budget analyses, and the verification of large-eddy simulations.