Identification

Title

Estimates of Cn2 from numerical weather prediction model output and comparison with thermosonde data

Abstract

Area-averaged estimates of Cn² from high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) model output are produced from local estimates of the spatial structure functions of refractive index with corrections for the inherent smoothing and filtering effects of the underlying NWP model. The key assumptions are the existence of a universal statistical description of small-scale turbulence and a locally universal spatial filter for the NWP model variables. Under these assumptions, spatial structure functions of the NWP model variables can be related to the structure functions of the atmospheric variables and extended to the smaller underresolved scales. The shape of the universal spatial filter is determined by comparisons of model structure functions with the climatological spatial structure function determined from an archive of aircraft data collected in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This method of computing Cn² has an important advantage over more traditional methods that are based on vertical differences because the structure function-based estimates avoid reference to the turbulence outer length scale. To evaluate the technique, NWP model-derived structure-function estimates of Cn² are compared with nighttime profiles of Cn² derived from temperature structure-function sensors attached to a rawinsonde (thermosonde) near Holloman Air Force Base in the United States.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cf9rcg

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-08-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright 2010 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact