Evaluation of Turbulence Measurement Techniques from a Single Doppler Lidar

Accurate measurements of turbulent quantities are necessary to characterize the planetary boundary layer. Additionally, these measurements can be used over a wide range of applications, such as understanding the effect of turbulence on wind turbine performance and evaluating dispersion of chemicals and trace gasses. Several different Doppler lidar scanning strategies have been proposed and utilized to take the observations necessary to retrieve turbulence quantities. However, questions remain about the relative accuracies of such measurements using each technique.

During the LUMEX (Lidar Uncertainty Measurement Experiment) and XPIA (eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrumentation Assessment) field campaigns, several different methods to quantify turbulence from a single Doppler lidar were tested. These experiments were conducted at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO) in Erie, CO. A 300-m tower instrumented with sonic anemometers is located at the BAO, which is used for comparison in evaluation of Doppler lidar turbulence measurements.

Within this presentation, turbulence measurements retrieved from a single Doppler lidar through a variety of strategies are evaluated by a comparison with observations from sonic anemometers. Uncertainties in turbulence measurements from each technique will be quantified and shown. Additionally, the relative limitations and advantages of each scanning strategy under a variety of atmospheric conditions will be discussed.