Monday, 23 January 2017: 1:45 PM
Conference Center: Skagit 4 (Washington State Convention Center )
NCAR’s eye-safe, diode-laser-based, water vapor micro-pulse differential absorption lidar (DIAL) instrument was deployed during the 2015 Plains Elevated Convection At Night (PECAN) field campaign. The DIAL was operating autonomously in Ellis, KS for 99% of the 6-week experiment. The instrument has been shown to collect high-quality, accurate 5-min profiles of water vapor from 300 m up to 4 or 5 km AGL with a range resolution of 150 m both day and night during non-precipitating conditions.
A project long characterization of the DIAL’s moisture profile and diurnal moisture variability from 1 June – 15 July 2015 will be shown. Further potential is achieved by combining these DIAL profiles with wind profiler data to obtain vertical profiles of water vapor fluxes. When combined with continuous temperature profiling instruments (e.g., AERI), stability profiles can be calculated. These moisture profiles, water vapor flux profiles and stability profiles will be evaluated in the context of the observed convective events in the region to assess their impact on improving convective weather forecasting skill.
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