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Proceedings with Extended Abstracts (single PDF file) - Radio ...

Proceedings with Extended Abstracts (single PDF file) - Radio ...

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APPLICATION OF THE DUAL-BEAMWIDTH METHOD TO ANARROW BEAM MF RADAR FOR ESTIMATION OF TURBULENTSPECTRAL WIDTHAbstractR. Latteck, W. Singer, N. EnglerLeibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik, Schloss-Str. 6D-18225 Kühlungsborn, GermanySpectral widths observed by narrow beam VHF/UHF Doppler radars can be used toestimate turbulent energy dissipation rates. In case of broader beams, the observed spectralwidths have to be corrected for the influence of beam and shear broadening causedby the background wind field. VanZandt et al. (2002) developed a new dual-beamwidthmethod to estimate the turbulent component of spectral width from MST radar observations<strong>with</strong>out additional knowledge of the wind field and tested it successfully for thetroposphere. In summer 2002 a new MF radar was put into operation at Saura on theAndøya island in Norway. The system has high flexibility in antenna beam forming allowingoff-zenith beams <strong>with</strong> different beam widths. Experiments <strong>with</strong> different beamwidths have been carried out <strong>with</strong> the MF radar to test the dual-beam width method atmesospheric altitudes. We compare spectral width estimates from both the <strong>single</strong>-beamwidth and the dual-beam width method on a case study basis.IntroductionThe spectral width σ 2 obs of an observed radar Doppler signal is related to the velocityvariance due to turbulence σ 2 turb what can be used to estimate turbulent energy dissipationrates. If a relative wide radar beam is used σ 2 obs is also influenced by variances due to theinteraction <strong>with</strong> the background wind and shear σ 2 beam+shear and of waves σ 2 wave <strong>with</strong> theradar beam (Hocking, 1983)σobs 2 = σturb 2 + σbeam+shear 2 + σwave 2 (1)σobs 2 = σturb 2 + σcorr 2 (2)which have to be removed from the observed spectral width to get σturb. 2 The standardor traditional <strong>single</strong>-beamwidth method (1BW) consists of estimating σwave, 2 evaluatingσbeam+shear 2 and substracting σcorr 2 from σobs 2 (VanZandt et al., 2002). This traditionalmethod works well as long as the horizontal wind is small enough to let the correctionterm σcorr 2 be smaller then the total observed spectral width σobs. 2 The dual-beam-widthmethod(2BW) considers that the dominant terms in σbeam+shear 2 are proportional to thebeam width θ 2 (Half-Power-Half-Width) what means that σcorr 2 is also approximatelyproportional to θ 2 .Ifσobs 2 is measured simultaneously in nested volumes <strong>with</strong> radar beamscharacterized by a narrow beam width θ n and a wide beam width θ w two simultaneousequations for σobs,n 2 and σobs,w 2 can be solved (VanZandt et al., 2002) what results inσturb 2 = θ2 w · σobs,n 2 − θn 2 · σobs,w2 (3)θw 2 − θn2<strong>with</strong> the advantage, that neither the wind speeds and shears nor the exact pointing angleof the radar beam are required for the correction. The dual-beam width method assumesthat for both beam widths the same fraction of the pulse volume is filled <strong>with</strong> turbulenceand require the beam widths only.245

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