Abstract
Abstract. During the eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrumentation Assessment (XPIA) campaign, which was carried out at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO) in spring 2015, multiple-Doppler scanning strategies were carried out with scanning wind lidars and Ka-band radars. Specifically, step–stare measurements were collected simultaneously with three scanning Doppler lidars, while two scanning Ka-band radars carried out simultaneous range height indicator (RHI) scans. The XPIA experiment provided the unique opportunity to compare directly virtual-tower measurements performed simultaneously with Ka-band radars and Doppler wind lidars. Furthermore, multiple-Doppler measurements were assessed against sonic anemometer data acquired from the meteorological tower (met-tower) present at the BAO site and a lidar wind profiler. This survey shows that – despite the different technologies, measurement volumes and sampling periods used for the lidar and radar measurements – a very good accuracy is achieved for both remote-sensing techniques for probing horizontal wind speed and wind direction with the virtual-tower scanning technique.
Highlights
Debnath et al.: Assessment of virtual towers performed with wind lidars and Ka-band radars proportional to the Doppler shift on the backscattered signal generated by the aerosol suspended in the atmosphere (Pena et al, 2013)
The virtual-tower measurements presented in this paper are part of the eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrument Assessment (XPIA) field study, which was funded by the U.S Department of Energy within the Atmosphere to Electrons (A2e) program to estimate accuracy and capabilities of various remote-sensing techniques for the characterization of complex atmospheric flows in and near wind farms
For the measurements performed on 25 March 2015, the maximum and minimum range for scanning Doppler lidars varied from 300 up to 3000 m, while the carrier-to-noise ratio was between −50 and 3 dB
Summary
The increasing need of monitoring the atmospheric boundary layer for a broad range of technological and scientific pursuits – such as for meteorology (Banta et al, 2002; Calhoun et al, 2006; Emeis et al, 2007; Horanyi et al, 2015; Vanderwende et al, 2015; Bonin et al, 2015), renewable energy (Thresher et al, 2008; Jones and Bouamane, 2011; Iungo et al, 2013; Aitken et al, 2014; Iungo, 2016) and air traffic management (George and Yang, 2012; Smalikho and Banakh, 2015) – has led to a rapid development of remotesensing measurement techniques, such as wind lidars (Courtney et al, 2008; Cariou, 2015; Simley and Pao, 2012; Iungo and Porté-Agel, 2013, 2014) and radars (Farnet and Stevens, 1990; O’Hora and Bech, 2007; Hirth and Schroeder, 2013; Hirth et al, 2015). Measurements of multiple velocity components with a single lidar or radar have been typically performed by sequentially sensing different locations of a measurement volume, and assuming flow homogeneity within the measurement volume This constraint entails limitations on the size of the measurement volume and applicability of these scanning strategies in the presence of significant flow heterogeneity, such as for measurements over complex terrain (Bingöl et al, 2009) and wind turbine wakes (Lundquist et al, 2015). The virtual-tower measurements presented in this paper are part of the eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrument Assessment (XPIA) field study, which was funded by the U.S Department of Energy within the Atmosphere to Electrons (A2e) program to estimate accuracy and capabilities of various remote-sensing techniques for the characterization of complex atmospheric flows in and near wind farms.
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