Surface-Based Remote Sensing of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

184 Pages·2011·4.681 MB·English

by  Stefan Emeis (auth.)

Surface-Based Remote Sensing of the Atmospheric
Boundary Layer
ATMOSPHERICANDOCEANOGRAPHICSCIENCESLIBRARY
Volume40
Editors
LawrenceA.Mysak,DepartmentofAtmosphericandOceanographicSciences,
McGillUniversity,Montreal,Canada
KevinHamilton,InternationalPacificResearchCenter,UniversityofHawaii,Honolulu,
HI,U.S.A.
EditorialAdvisoryBoard
A.Berger UniversitéCatholique,Louvain,Belgium
J.R.Garratt CSIRO,Aspendale,Victoria,Australia
J.Hansen MIT,Cambridge,MA,U.S.A.
M.Hantel UniversitätWien,Austria
H.Kelder KNMI(RoyalNetherlandsMeteorologicalInstitute),
DeBilt,TheNetherlands
T.N.Krishnamurti TheFloridaStateUniversity,Tallahassee,FL,U.S.A.
P.Lemke AlfredWegenerInstituteforPolarandMarineResearch,
Bremerhaven,Germany
A.Robock RutgersUniversity,NewBrunswick,NJ,U.S.A.
S.H.Schneider† StanfordUniversity,CA,U.S.A.
G.E.Swaters UniversityofAlberta,Edmonton,Canada
J.C.Wyngaard PennsylvaniaStateUniversity,UniversityPark,PA,U.S.A.
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/5669
Stefan Emeis
Surface-Based Remote
Sensing of the Atmospheric
Boundary Layer
123
Dr.StefanEmeis
KarlsruheInstituteofTechnology
InstituteforMeteorologyandClimate
Research–AtmosphericEnvironmental
Research(IMK-IFU)
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Germany
[email protected]
ISSN1383-8601
ISBN978-90-481-9339-4 e-ISBN978-90-481-9340-0
DOI10.1007/978-90-481-9340-0
SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergLondonNewYork
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Preface
There exist several good books on the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) from
a theoretical or fluid dynamics point of view starting with Stull’s book from
1988. A very recent example (although in the German language) is Kraus’ book
GrundlagenderGrenzschicht-Meteorologie,whichwasjustpublishedbySpringer
in2008.BookswhichconcentrateonexperimentalABLresearcharelessfrequent.
MostexperimentalABLresearchhasbeenmadesofarbysurface-basedinsitu
experimentation (tower measurements up to a few hundred metres, surface energy
balancemeasurements,shortaircraftexperiments,shortexperimentswithtethered
balloons, constant-level balloons, evaluation of radiosonde data). A good book on
experimentalsurface-basedinsituABLresearchisthebookMicrometeorologyby
Foken(2008),whichconcentratesonsurfacefluxmeasurements.
Although the surface fluxes are one of the main driving factors for the daily
variation of the ABL, an ABL description is only complete if its complete verti-
calstructureisanalysedanddetermined.Satelliteinformationisavailablecovering
largeareas,butithasonlylimitedtemporalresolutionandlackssufficientvertical
resolution.Therefore,surface-basedremotesensingisprobablytheonlypossibility
toenlargethedatabaseforABLstudies,asitoffersnearlycontinuousandvertically
highlyresolvedinformationforspecificsitesofinterest.
Amodernmonographonthistopicisnotknownsofar.ThereisonlyLenschow’s
ProbingtheAtmosphericBoundaryLayerfrom1986.Booksongeneralmeteorolog-
icalmeasurementmethodslikethosebyBrockandRichardson(2001),Strangeways
(2003), or Emeis (2010) are designed to give a general overview of measurement
techniques. The first two of these even devote only a few pages on ground-based
remotesensingatall.
Therefore, up to now, a standard reference for ground-based remote sensing of
theABListhereviewpaperon“Surface-BasedRemoteSensingoftheAtmospheric
BoundaryLayer”byWilczaketal.(1996)honouringthe25thanniversaryofthesci-
entific journal “Boundary-Layer Meteorology”. A lot of progress has been made
since the appearance of this review paper. Micro rain RADARs and the use of
ceilometersforABLprofilingarecompletelynewinABLresearchandarenotmen-
tionedatallinWilczaketal.’spaper.ThesamereferstomodernsmallwindLIDARs
for wind energy applications. ABL flux profile measurements, RASS techniques,
v
vi Preface
andmixing-layerheightdeterminationarementionedinWilczak’sreview,butwere
at their infancy at that time. Considerable enhancements have been obtained since
then.
This development of ground-based remote-sensing instrumentation in turn has
revitalized the interest in boundary layer meteorology. Modern active and passive
soundersallowformonitoringthewholedepthoftheboundarylayer.Theprocess-
ing of this data partly needs advanced descriptions of the boundary layer, which
could not be derived from pure surface layer probing. This above sketched devel-
opment justifies a monograph on ground-based remote sensing of the atmospheric
boundarylayer.
Partofthematerialgatheredinthisbookhasbeencollectedwhenpreparingthe
author’slecturesonmodernmeteorologicalmeasurementmethodsattheUniversity
of Cologne and at a summer school at Risø National Laboratory (part of DTU,
Denmark) on “Remote sensing for Wind Energy”. Some other parts are based on
various peer-reviewed papers on ground-based remote sensing by the author, or
those to which he contributed major parts. I am very grateful to Michael Hantel
as member of the Editorial Board of this book series for bringing my attention to
thisplatformforscientificcommunication.Followinghissuggestion,Ireadthrough
alargeramountofrecentscientificpapersandtriedtowriteanupdateonthepresent
stateofground-basedremotesensingoftheABL.Ihopethatpractitionersandsci-
entistswillbenefitfromthecollectedmaterialinthisbook.Ithankthepublisherfor
theinterestinthisimportantsubjectofcurrentmeteorologicalresearchandforthe
supportandencouragementduringtheproductionofthebook.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen,Germany StefanEmeis
References
BrockFV,RichardsonSJ(2001)MeteorologicalMeasurementSystems.OxfordUniversityPress,
Oxford,290pp.
EmeisS(2010)MeasurementMethodsinAtmosphericSciences–InsituandRemote.Borntraeger,
Stuttgart,257pp.
FokenT(2008)Micrometeorology.Springer,NewYork
KrausH(2008)GrundlagenderGrenzschicht-Meteorologie.Springer,NewYork
LenschowD(1986)ProbingtheAtmosphericBoundaryLayer.AmericanMeteorologicalSociety,
Boston,MA,269pp.
Strangeways I (2003) Measuring the Natural Environment, second edn. Cambridge University
Press,Cambridge,534pp.
StullRB(1988)AnIntroductiontoBoundaryLayerMeteorology.Kluwer,Dordrecht
WilczakJM,GossardEE,NeffWD,EberhardWL(1996)Ground-basedremotesensingofthe
atmosphericboundarylayer:25yearsofprogress.Bound-LayMeteor78:321–349
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 TheBeginningsofBoundaryLayerResearch . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 ShortHistoryofUpper-AirMeasurements . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 TheBeginningofGround-BasedRemoteSensing . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 TheScopeofThisBook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Analytical Description and Vertical Structure of the
AtmosphericBoundaryLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 ABLOverFlatTerrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.1 Neutral(Dynamical)BoundaryLayer . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.2 ConvectiveBoundaryLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.3 StableBoundaryLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3 UrbanBoundaryLayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 ForestBoundaryLayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.5 MarineBoundaryLayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.5.1 Land–SeaWindSystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.6 MountainousTerrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3 BasicPrinciplesofSurface-BasedRemoteSensing . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2 RADAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.2.1 Windprofiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2.2 MicroRainRADAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3 SODAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3.1 SNODAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 RASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4.1 Bragg-(Windprofiler)RASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4.2 Doppler-(SODAR)RASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.5 LIDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5.1 Backscatter(Aerosol)LIDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
vii
viii Contents
3.5.2 DifferentialAbsorptionLIDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.5.3 Raman-LIDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.5.4 DopplerWindLIDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5.5 OtherOpticalFlowMeasurementTechniques. . . . . . . 59
3.6 Radiometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6.1 InfraredInterferometer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.7 FTIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.8 DOAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.9 Scintillometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.10 Tomography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.2 VerticalLayeringoftheABL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.2.1 MixingLayerHeight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.2.2 BoundaryLayerHeight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.2.3 CloudsandCloudBaseHeight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.3 VerticalProfilesofAtmosphericVariables . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.3.1 WindandTurbulence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.3.2 Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.3.3 Humidity,Water,andIce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.3.4 TraceSubstances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.4 VerticalFluxProfiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.4.1 MomentumFlux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.4.2 HeatFlux. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
4.4.3 HumidityorWaterVapourFlux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.5 RegionalandLocalFlowSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.5.1 Low-LevelJets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.5.2 GustFrontsandColdAirOutflows . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.5.3 LandandSeaBreeze. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.5.4 Flow in Mountainous Terrain, Valley, and
MountainBreeze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4.5.5 DrainageandKatabaticFlows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
4.6 Conclusions on the Applicability of Ground-Based
RemoteSensingforABLResearchandMonitoring . . . . . . . 137
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5 Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.2 TechnologicalAdvancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.3 ApplicationNeeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Contents ix
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
A.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
A.2 NameandScope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
A.3 TheSeriesofConferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
NameIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
SubjectIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171