Evaluation of Single and Multiple Doppler Lidar Techniques to Measure Complex Flow during the XPIA Field Campaign

Accurate three dimensional wind information of the flow field can be an important tool in not only visualizing complex flow, but also understanding the underlying physical processes and improve flow modeling. However, making such measurements is challenging and requires a thorough analysis of the measurement uncertainties to properly interpret the results. The XPIA (eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrumentation Assessment) field campaign conducted at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO) in Erie, CO from 2 March – 31 May, 2015 brought together a large suite of in-situ and remote sensing measurement platforms to evaluate complex flow measurement strategies.

In this presentation, measurement uncertainties for different single and multi-Doppler strategies will be investigated. The tradeoffs (such as time/space resolution vs. spatial coverage) among the different measurement techniques will be evaluated using co-located measurements made near the BAO tower. Sensitivity of the single/multi Doppler measurement uncertainties to averaging period will be investigated using the sonic anemometers installed on the BAO tower as the standard reference. Finally, the radiometer measurements will be used to partition the measurement periods as a function of atmospheric stability and determine if this has an effect on vector retrieval uncertainty.