Evaluation of 2-D and 3-D Wind Retrievals from Single and Multiple Doppler Lidars 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.

Evaluation of different techniques to make 2-D and 3-D wind measurements using remote sensing instrumentation and the uncertainties associated with those techniques was one of the central goals of the XPIA (eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrumentation Assessment) field campaign. This experiment was conducted in Spring 2015 at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO) site in Erie, CO.

In this presentation, 3-D wind retrievals over a volume using multiple Doppler lidars will be evaluated to understand: (1) the various challenges involved in making such measurements such as deployment and scanning strategy and the limitations they impose on the retrieval; (2) the accuracy of the retrieval process; (3) sampling errors and representativeness of the retrievals. In addition, 2-D wind retrievals from single Doppler lidar using the modified optimal interpolation technique will be compared against these results in order to evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses.