Simulation of atmospheric turbulence observations: fractal turbulence

A new trend is to observe the atmospheric turbulence field by using Doppler radars and/or Doppler lidars. See e.g. Chan (2011) for the retrieval of eddy dissipation rate (EDR) maps at the Hongkong International Airport. Here we present how to simulate a wind field, where the input is an EDR field. To convert the EDR field into a wind field, we introduce fractal turbulence. It is a ‘cheap' solution for a turbulence realisation, in the sense that it costs little memory. Fractal turbulence is self-similar on different scales, and periodic on each scale itself. The solution satisfies the Kolmogorov power law and structure functions. With the simulated wind field and radar (or lidar) specifications the radar (lidar) observables can be calculated. The radar observables are the backscatter reflection, the mean Doppler velocity and the Doppler spectral width.