Tuesday, 5 November 2002
Turbulence and wind observation in the tropical tropopause region by the Equatorial Atmosphere Radar
Equatorial Atmosphere Radar (EAR) was installed in
Kototabang (100.32E, 0.20S), West Sumatra in the
Republic of Indonesia in March 2001, and
continuous observations including the tropical tropopause region (2-20 km)
has been performed since the end of June 2001.
EAR has a VHF frequency of 47.0 MHz, peak output power of 100 kW,
and maximum resolution is 150 m in height and 1 min in time, respectively.
EAR observe three-dimensional wind velocities by five-beam DBS
(Doppler Beam Swinging) mode, and 3-m scale turbulence corresponding
to a half of the radar wavelength.
Through the continuous observation, we found an "Apparent updraft"
seems to be caused by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability just above the
tropopause continuously during November 2001.
And radiosonde observation also showed that Richardson number is
small (smaller than 0.5) in that term.
We show a wind and turbulence observation results by the EAR,
especially in November 2001.
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