Eddy lifetimes from LES and implications for lidar scans

Eddy lifetime (correlation time) varies with height in turbulent boundary layers. It also varies with changes in boundary layer depth, vertical shear and surface heat flux. We present temporal correlation functions (TCFs) for a variety of variables from the output of large-eddy simulations. The TCFs are used to show how temporal-spatial information in typical lidar scans are different from ideal "snapshots" of the atmosphere where all points in space would be sampled at the same time. The TCFs also provide guidance on how frequenty lidar scans should be repeated in order to make smooth animations of the flow.