Estimating and measurement of atmospheric optical turbulence according to balloon-borne radiosonde for three sites in China

Abstract

The distribution of optical turbulence ( C n 2 profiles) is the fundamental parameter closely related to the design and application of optoelectronic systems. Since systematic direct measurements of optical turbulence for many climates and seasons are not available, it is useful to estimate C n 2 effectively from the routine meteorological parameters. The C n 2 profiles are estimated by routine meteorological parameters based on the Tatarskii model, and the estimated results are compared with the corresponding radiosonde measurements from the field campaigns at Rongcheng ( 122.37 ∘ E , 37.15 ∘ N ), Taizhou ( 121.42 ∘ E , 28.62 ∘ N ), and Dachaidan ( 95.35 ∘ E , 37.74 ∘ N ) in China. The agreement between the estimation model and the measurement is very close, except for a portion of the atmosphere where it showed considerable difference. Additionally, statistical operators are used to quantify the performance of the estimated model, and the statistical results also show that the estimated and measured C n 2 profiles are consistent well. Furthermore, the integrated parameters (such as the Fried parameter, r 0 ) from radiosonde measurement are 7.92 cm, 5.39 cm, and 3.68 cm at Rongcheng, Taizhou, and Dachaidan, respectively. Therefore, the C n 2 profiles and their characteristics in these typical climate sites provide useful information to assess the effect of laser transmission in the atmosphere, which are usually used in the design of optoelectronic systems and astronomical site testing.

Atmospheric Optical Turbulence Characteristics over the Ocean Relevant to Astronomy and Atmospheric Physics

“…The model contained more atmospheric parameters and might be better in line with the nature of the actual development of turbulence. The introduction of using this model to estimate the strength of optical turbulence is given in [29]. Figure 5 shows the C 2 n profiles of estimated and measured, as well as the profiles of temperature gradient, wind shear, outer scale, and potential refractive index gradient.…”

Analysis of the Optical Turbulence Model Using Meteorological Data

“…Furthermore, Ruggiero & DeBenedictis developed an outer scale model at the Air Force Research Laboratory from the Holloman Spring 1998 and Holloman Spring 1999 thermosonde campaigns (HMNSP99), which gave the relationships relating parameterization to wind shear and temperature gradient [22]. In 2020, Bi et al investigated the accuracy of the HMNSP99 model by comparing them with the corresponding radiosonde measurements and indicated that the estimated C 2 n profiles were not completely consistent with the measured values at the corresponding altitudes [23]. The existing optical turbulence models each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and no one model is recognized as the best.…”

“…The existing optical turbulence models each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and no one model is recognized as the best. Despite its drawbacks, the HMNSP99 model represents the most widely used outer scale model [23][24][25]. Due to the shortcomings of the existing optical turbulence models, improvements are needed to reflect the optical turbulence characteristics more accurately.…”

Atmospheric Optical Turbulence Profile Measurement and Model Improvement over Arid and Semi-arid regions

“…The atmospheric refractive index structure constant ( ) is commonly used to characterize atmospheric optical turbulence, and its distribution with height is called the atmospheric optical turbulence profile (Hutt, 1999;Wu et al, 2007). As light waves propagate in the atmosphere, they are affected by atmospheric optical turbulence, resulting in light-intensity flicker, image-point jitter, and image blurring, which affect the performance of photoelectric systems (e.g., the decline in the observation level of astronomical telescopes, the interference of laser transmission, the degradation of optical remote sensing imaging quality) (Bendersky et al, 2004;Bi et al, 2020;He et al, 2008;Rani et al, 2019). Therefore, obtaining the atmospheric optical turbulence profile is essential for improving the performance of optical systems.…”

“…Gobi deserts, which has attracted the attention of many scientists. To date, research on the characteristics of turbulence in northwestern China has been carried out in only a few areas, such as Ali, Dachaidan, and Lhasa (Bi et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2013;Wu et al, 2020a;Wu et al, 2020b). Therefore, further research on turbulence parameters in northwestern China is still needed.In this study, a month-long turbulence observation campaign was carried out at three typical observation sites (Golmud, Dunhuang, and Zhangye) in northwestern China.…”