Measurements of Turbulent Energy Dissipation Rate with a CW Doppler Lidar in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Abstract

Abstract The results of a theoretical and experimental study of the feasibility of the turbulent energy dissipation rate ϵT measurements with a continuous wave (CW) CO2 Doppler lidar in the atmospheric boundary layer are presented. Three methods of probing ϵT are considered: 1) Doppler spectrum width, 2) the temporal spectrum (temporal structure function) of wind velocity measured by the Doppler lidar, and 3) spatial structure function. In these methods, information on the dissipation rate is extracted by means of analysis of the corresponding statistical characteristics of wind velocity in the inertial subrange of the turbulence, taking into account the spatial averaging of the measured wind velocity fluctuations over sounded volume. In the first and third methods, the spatial structure of the turbulence is analyzed directly. In the second method, to determine ϵT from the measured temporal characteristics, it is necessary to use a model for the spatiotemporal correlation function of wind velocity. As a r...