Airborne aerothermal measurement of Cn2 in the tropopause

Bruce S. Masson; B. Rennich

doi:10.1117/12.281025

6 August 1997 Airborne aerothermal measurement of C_n²in the tropopause

Bruce S. Masson, B. Rennich

Proceedings Volume 3065, Laser Radar Technology and Applications II; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.281025
Event: AeroSense '97, 1997, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

As a segment of a broader program to assess optical properties of the atmosphere in the vicinity of the tropopause, the refractive index structure constant was measured by an airborne anemometry method. This paper discusses details of the anemometer, its implementation as well as some results. The anemometry method emphasizes turbulence with horizonal scales lying between 6 meters and 60 meters. A subsequent overflight, to be reported elsewhere, of the 50 MHz radar at White Sands Missile Range indicates that the horizontally derived structure constants, C_n², are comparable to the vertically derived structure constants obtained from radar. For some flights C_n² appears to be log-normal at least in the asymptotic sense, i.e. only for small deviations from the mean. Large deviations are clearly sub log-normal and occur less frequently than would be the case were the structure constant a true log-normal variable. On other flights inhomogeneity was encountered in the sense of an exit form one air mass and entry into a second. This condition resulted in a bimodality of the statistics. On the whole, however, the entire data set collected in pat over the far east and in part of the western US also appears to be well approximated by an overall log-normal distribution in spite of the obvious inhomogeneity of the atmospheric masses encountered in the collection.

Citation Download Citation

Bruce S. Masson and B. Rennich "Airborne aerothermal measurement of C_n²in the tropopause", Proc. SPIE 3065, Laser Radar Technology and Applications II, (6 August 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.281025

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