An Evaluation of Wind Profiler, RASS, and Microwave Radiometer Performance

Abstract

Several ground-based remote sensors were operated together in Colorado during February and March 1991 to obtain continuous profiles of the kinematic and thermodynamic structure of the atmosphere. Instrument performance is compared for five different wind profilers. Each was equipped with Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) capability to measure virtual temperature. This was the first side-by-side comparison of all three of the most common windprofiler frequencies: 50, 404, and 915 MHz. The 404-MHz system was a NOAA Wind Profiler Demonstration Network (WPDN) unit. Dual-frequency microwave radiometers that measured path-integrated water vapor and liquid water content were also evaluated. Frequent rawinsonde launches from the remote-sensor sites provided an extensive set of in situ measurements for comparison. The winter operations provide a severe test of the profiler/RASS capabilities because atmospheric scattering is relatively weak and acoustic attenuation is relatively strong in cold, dry conditions. Nevertheless, the lower-frequency systems exhibited impressive height coverage for wind and virtual temperature profiling, whereas the high-frequency units provided higher-resolution measurements near the surface. Comparisons between remote sensor and rawinsonde data generally showed excellent agreement. The results support more widespread use of these emerging technologies.

Cold frontal structure derived from radar wind profilers

“…Random errors in wind measurements are estimated to be less than 1 m s -1 for orthogonal wind components for the UHF measurements, and between 1.5 and 2 m s -1 for the present mode of VHF operation (Jerrett, 1996). Similar accuracies have been reported by Martner et al (1993).…”

Clear air boundary layer spaced antenna wind measurement with the Multiple Antenna Profiler (MAPR)

“…These values are quite good relative to typical agreement between different instruments. For example, Weber et al (1990) found a standard deviation of about 2.2 m s −1 between hourly wind measurements of two co-located DBS wind profilers, and Martner et al (1993) found the standard deviation between low level wind profiler winds and collocated rawinsondes measurements to range between 3-5 m s −1 . In tropical conditions with strong SNR, Riddle et al (1996) report standard deviations between 1.0-1.5 m s −1 in a similar comparison with rawinsondes.…”

The Coastal Boundary Layer and Air Pollution - A High Temporal Resolution Analysis in the East Mediterranean Coast

“…1). The ability of the radar technology to provide useful measurements of developing convective PBL was widely studied [24][25][26][27][28][29]. The LAP-3000 profiler is a pulsed doppler RAdio Detection And Ranging instrument (RADAR) providing wind speed (WS) and wind direction (WD) profiles.…”