Abstract |
Procedures on installing, acceptance testing, operating, maintenance and quality assuring three types of ground-based, upper air meteorological measurement systems are described. The limitations and uncertainties in precision and accuracy measurements associated with these systems are also presented. The three systems are: SODAR (Sound Detection and Ranging), RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging), and RADAR/RASS (RADAR/Radio Acoustic Sounding System). SODAR uses acoustic pulses to measure the horizontal and vertical components of the wind profile as well as the height above ground level of the atmospheric inversion layer. RADAR uses electromagnetic pulses to measure the horizontal and vertical components of the wind profile. RADAR/RASS, on the other hand, combines acoustic and electromagnetic pulses which yields data on air temperature, wind speed and the horizontal and vertical components of the wind profile. |