15th Conference on Boundary Layer and Turbulence

2.2

Renaissance of scintillometry

Henk A. R. De Bruin, Meteorology and Air Quality Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands

In the 1960 - 1980's a lot of fundamental work has been done on the determination of surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat, momentum as well as the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy and the structure parameter of temperature using scintillometers. The theoretical spading work was done in the former USSR, while, later , important experimental and theoretical work has been carried out, mostly in the USA. For unknown reason, funding for scintillometry stopped suddenly. In the mid-1990's some groups in Europe and New Zealand resumed research on scintillometry, which, in the beginning, had an applied nature. The Meteorology and Air Quality Group of the Wageningen University participated in this 'renaissance' of scintillometry research. It is the objective of this paper to present a brief overview of recent results. The following issues will be dealt with: 1. Application of long path scintillometers over heterogeneous terrain to determine the sensible and latent heat flux. This concerns long-path large aperture scintillometers (LAS) as well as a long-path radio-wave (small) aperture scintillometer (RWS). 2. Applications of small aperture laser scintillometers to determine the dissipation of TKE and the structure parameter of temperature. Results will be presented of various projects, such as WINTEX (1997, Sweden), Flevopolder (1998, the Netherlands), LITFASS (1998-, Germany), RAPID (USA, 1999), CASES-99 (1999, USA) and Yaqui (2000, NW-Mexico).

extended abstract  Extended Abstract (144K)

Session 2, Energy Balance and Surface Flux Observational Methods and Studies
Monday, 15 July 2002, 10:30 AM-12:45 PM

Previous paper  Next paper

Browse or search entire meeting

AMS Home Page