Temporal dynamics of longitudinal and transverse velocity structure functions retrieved from the data of acoustic sounding

Abstract

Temporal dynamics of vertical profiles of the longitudinal and transverse velocity structure functions and characteristics retrieved using an original procedure from regular measurements of vertical profiles of the wind velocity vector with a minisodar operating at a frequency of 4900 Hz is discussed. It is established that the structure functions first increase with the separation of the observation points and then are saturated; moreover, in agreement with the data available from the literature, the longitudinal velocity structure function is much greater than the transverse one. The altitude behavior of the velocity structure characteristic is well described by a z −2/3 dependence predicted theoretically. In this case, the structure function calculated from one-point measurements of the vertical wind velocity component exceeds the corresponding structure function retrieved for the vertical separation of the observation points. This is also in agreement with generalizations from the theory of isotropic turbulence.