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Abstract. The weak-wind Stable Boundary Layer (wwSBL) is poorly described by theory and breaks basic assumptions necessary for observations of turbulence. Understanding the wwSBL requires distributed observations capable of separating between submeso and turbulent scales. To this end, we present the Large Eddy Observatory, Voitsumra Experiment 2019 (LOVE19) which featured 1350 m of fiber optic distributed sensing (FODS) of air temperature and wind speed, as well as an experimental wind direction method, at scales as fine as 1 s and 0.127 m in addition to a suite of point observations of turbulence and ground-based remote sensing. Additionally, flights with a fiber optic cable attached to a tethered balloon provide an unprecedented detailed view of the boundary layer structure with a resolution of 0.254 m and 10 s between 1–200 m height. Two examples are provided demonstrating the unique capabilities of the LOVE19 data for examining boundary layer processes: 1) FODS observations between 1m and ~200 m height during a period of gravity waves propagating across the entire boundary layer and 2) tracking a near-surface, transient submeso structure that causes an intermittent burst of turbulence. All data can be accessed at Zenodo through the DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4312976 (Lapo et al., 2020a).

Abstract. The weak-wind stable boundary layer (wwSBL) is poorly described by theory and breaks basic assumptions necessary for observations of turbulence. Understanding the wwSBL requires distributed observations capable of separating between sub-mesoscales and turbulent scales. To this end, we present the Large eddy Observatory, Voitsumra Experiment 2019 (LOVE19) which featured 2105 m of fiber-optic distributed sensing (FODS) of air temperature and wind speed, as well as an experimental wind direction method, at scales as fine as 1 s and 0.127 m in addition to a suite of point observations of turbulence and ground-based remote sensing profiling. Additionally, flights with a fiber-optic cable attached to a tethered balloon (termed FlyFOX, Flying Fiber Optics eXperiment) provide an unprecedentedly detailed view of the boundary layer structure with a resolution of 0.254 m and 10 s between 1 and 200 m height. Two examples are provided, demonstrating the unique capabilities of the LOVE19 data for examining boundary layer processes: (1) FODS observations between 1 and 200 m height during a period of gravity waves propagating across the entire boundary layer and (2) tracking a near-surface, transient, sub-mesoscale structure that causes an intermittent burst of turbulence. All data can be accessed at Zenodo through the DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4312976 (Lapo et al., 2020a).

Abstract. A fully automatic Horizontal Mobile Measuring System (HMMS) for atmospheric quantities has been developed. The HMMS is based on the drive mechanism of a garden railway system and can be installed at any location and with any measuring track. In addition to meteorological quantities (temperature, humidity and short/long-wave down/upwelling radiation), HMMS also measures trace gas concentrations (carbon dioxide and ozone). While sufficient spatial resolution is a problem even for measurements on distributed towers, this could be easily achieved with the HMMS, which has been specifically developed to obtain higher information density about horizontal gradients in a heterogeneous forest ecosystem. There, horizontal gradients of meteorological quantities and trace gases could be immense, particularly at the transition from a dense forest to an open clearing, with large impact on meteorological parameters and exchange processes. Consequently, HMMS was firstly applied during EGER IOP3 project (ExchanGE processes in mountainous Regions – Intense Observation Period 3) in the Fichtelgebirge Mountains (SE Germany) during summer 2011. At a constant 1 m above ground, the measuring track of the HMMS consisted of a straight line perpendicular to the forest edge, starting in the dense spruce forest and leading 75 m into an open clearing. Tags with bar codes, mounted every meter on the wooden substructure, allowed (a) keeping the speed of the HMMS constant (approx. 0.5 m s−1) and (b) operation of the HMMS in a continuous back and forth running mode. During EGER IOP3, HMMS was operational for almost 250 h. Results show that – due to considerably long response times (between 4 s and 20 s) of commercial temperature, humidity and the radiation sensors – true spatial variations of the meteorological quantities could not be adequately captured (mainly at the forest edge). Corresponding dynamical (spatial) errors of the measurement values were corrected on the basis of well defined individual response times of the sensors and application of a linear correction algorithm. Due to the very short response times (≤ 1 s) of the applied commercial CO2 and O3 analysers, dynamical errors for the trace gas data were negligible and no corrections were done.

Abstract. The paper presents a set of fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (FODS) experiments to expand the existing microstructure approach for horizontal turbulent wind direction by adding measurements of turbulent vertical component, as well as turbulent sensible heat flux. We address the observational challenge to isolate and quantify the weaker vertical turbulent motions from the much stronger mean advective horizontal flow signals. In the first part of this study, we test the ability of a cylindrical shroud to reduce the horizontal wind speed while keeping the vertical wind speed unaltered. A white shroud with a rigid support structure and 0.6 m diameter was identified as the most promising setup in which the correlation of flow properties between shrouded and reference systems is maximized. The optimum shroud setup reduces the horizontal wind standard deviation by 35 %, has a coefficient of determination of 0.972 for vertical wind standard deviations, and a RMSE of less than 0.018 ms−1 when compared to the reference. Spectral analysis showed a fixed ratio of spectral energy reduction in the low frequencies, e.g., <0.5 Hz, for temperature and wind components, momentum, and sensible heat flux. Unlike low frequencies, the ratios decrease exponentially in the high frequencies, which means the shroud dampens the high-frequency eddies with a timescale <6 s, considering both spectra and cospectra together. In the second part, the optimum shroud configuration was installed around a heated fiber-optic cable with attached microstructures in a forest to validate our findings. While this setup failed to isolate the magnitude and sign of the vertical wind perturbations from FODS in the shrouded portion, concurrent observations from an unshrouded part of the FODS sensor in the weak-wind subcanopy of the forest (12–17 m above ground level) yielded physically meaningful measurements of the vertical motions associated with coherent structures. These organized turbulent motions have distinct sweep and ejection phases. These strong flow signals allow for detecting the turbulent vertical airflow at least 60 % of the time and 71 % when conditional sampling was applied. Comparison of the vertical wind perturbations against those from sonic anemometry yielded correlation coefficients of 0.35 and 0.36, which increased to 0.53 and 0.62 for conditional sampling. This setup enabled computation of eddy covariance-based direct sensible heat flux estimates solely from FODS, which are reported here as a methodological and computational novelty. Comparing them against those from eddy covariance using sonic anemometry yielded an encouraging agreement in both magnitude and temporal variability for selected periods.