Vertical turbulence measurements from the RACORO field campaign

The primary objective of the Routine Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Aerial Facility (AAF) Clouds with Low Optical Water Depths (CLOWD) Optical Radiative Observations (collectively RACORO) study, which was conducted from January through June of 2009, was to obtain data through “optically thin” water clouds to validate retrieval algorithms from ground-based measurement platforms and to improve model formulations of these boundary layer clouds. The Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) Twin Otter research aircraft was deployed for the RACORO field campaign to make a variety of atmospheric measurements below, within, and above optically thin clouds. A total of 59 flights were conducted in the vicinity of the ARM Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. The long duration of this field campaign, and the consequently large number of cloud measurements makes this a unique and valuable dataset. In this poster presentation, we present an analysis of histograms of vertical velocities measured during RACORO flights over a range of heights from the surface to within the cloud layer.