Estimate of Turbulence Eddy Dissipation Rate with Spectral Width Data from X-Band Doppler Weather Radar

Turbulence eddy dissipation rate(EDR) is an important parameter in estimating the transfer of turbulence kinetic energy from large scale to small scale. Many methods have been using for the observation and research of EDR including airborne in-site measurement, ground-based Doppler radar retrieval, and numerical model simulation and so on. Doppler spectral width characters the departure grade from the average value of various Doppler velocity of scatters in radar sampling volume. The X-band Doppler weather radar has superiorities in detecting and identifying the turbulence intension distribution and relational weather phenomenon such as cloud, thunderstorm, wind shear and front due to its extensive measure ranges both in Doppler velocity and spectral width.In this paper, the EDR are calculated using spectral width data from X-band Doppler weather radar.An effective neighborhood-average method is used in the spectral width data filtering to reduce the effect of uneven antenna rotation speed and noise. The data in a narrow beam, low elevation and not very far away from the radar are selected to ignore the effects of the wind shear, horizontal wind effects and inequality falling particles. According to the classification criteria proposed by ICAO (2007), the turbulence intensity is divided into three grades: light ,moderate and severe .Then the results of case study are validated with the airplane turbulence reports in operation of cloud-dissipating.The results show that, in the appropriate radar range and elevation, the EDR and turbulence intensity calculated from X-band Doppler weather radar spectral width data are reasonable, and consistent with the aircraft turbulence reports, X-band Doppler weather radar are of great potential in research of detecting atmospheric turbulence.