Radar Wind Profiler (RWP) and Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) Instrument Handbook
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DOE/SC-ARM-TR-044 Radar Wind Profiler (RWP) and Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) Instrument Handbook P Muradyan R Coulter March 2020 DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the U.S. Government. Neither the United States nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the U.S. Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S. Government or any agency thereof. DOE/SC-ARM-TR-044 Radar Wind Profiler (RWP) and Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) Instrument Handbook P Muradyan R Coulter Both at Argonne National Laboratory March 2020 Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research P Muradyan and R Coulter, March 2020, DOE/SC-ARM-TR-044 Acronyms and Abbreviations ACAPEX ARM Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment AMF ARM mobile facility ARM Atmospheric Radiation Measurement AT Acceptance Test BBSS balloon-borne sounding system BSRWP beam-steered radar wind profiler CF Central Facility COMBLE Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment DQO Data Quality Office ENA Eastern North Atlantic FA final amplifier FFT fast Fourier transform FMC-BL full motion control−boundary layer GPS Global Positioning System IMU Inertial Measurement Unit MAGIC Marine ARM GPCI Investigations of Clouds MARCUS Measurements of Aerosols, Radiation, and Clouds over the Southern Ocean MII Modulator, Intermediate Frequency and Interface MOSAIC Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate NSA North Slope of Alaska QC quality control RASS radio acoustic sounding system RWP radar wind profiler SGP Southern Great Plains SNR signal-to-noise ratio UTC Coordinated Universal Time VAP value-added product iv P Muradyan and R Coulter, March 2020, DOE/SC-ARM-TR-044 Contents Acronyms and Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... iv 1.0 General Overview ................................................................................................................................. 1 2.0 Contacts ................................................................................................................................................ 1 2.1 Mentors ........................................................................................................................................ 1 2.2 Vendor/Instrument Developer ...................................................................................................... 2 3.0 Deployment Locations and History ...................................................................................................... 2 4.0 Near-Real-Time Data Plots .................................................................................................................. 3 5.0 Data Description and Examples ........................................................................................................... 3 5.1 Data Formats ................................................................................................................................ 3 5.1.1 Wind Profile Data .............................................................................................................. 3 5.1.2 Virtual Temperature Profile Data ...................................................................................... 5 5.1.3 Precipitation Operation ..................................................................................................... 7 5.2 Data File Contents ........................................................................................................................ 8 5.2.1 Data Types......................................................................................................................... 8 5.2.2 Primary Variables and Expected Uncertainty ................................................................... 9 5.2.3 Data Quality Flags ........................................................................................................... 10 5.3 Annotated Examples. ................................................................................................................. 12 5.4 User Notes and Known Problems .............................................................................................. 12 5.5 Frequently Asked Questions ...................................................................................................... 12 6.0 Data Qualiy ......................................................................................................................................... 14 6.1 Data Quality Health and Status .................................................................................................. 14 6.2 Data Reviews by Instrument Mentor.......................................................................................... 14 6.3 Data Assessments by Site Scientist/Data Quality Office ........................................................... 15 6.4 Value-Added Products ............................................................................................................... 15 7.0 Instrument Details............................................................................................................................... 16 7.1 Detailed Description ................................................................................................................... 16 7.1.1 List of Components ......................................................................................................... 16 7.1.2 System Configuration and Measurement Methods ......................................................... 16 7.1.3 Specifications .................................................................................................................. 18 7.2 Operation and Maintenance ....................................................................................................... 18 7.2.1 User Manual .................................................................................................................... 18 7.2.2 Routine and Corrective Maintenance Documentation .................................................... 18 7.2.3 Software Documentation ................................................................................................. 18 7.3 Glossary ...................................................................................................................................... 18 7.4 Acronyms ................................................................................................................................... 18 8.0 Citable References .............................................................................................................................. 19 9.0 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 20 v P Muradyan and R Coulter, March 2020, DOE/SC-ARM-TR-044 Figures 1 Calculated moments for the vertical beam (precpmom, high power mode) at SGP I9, Billings, Oklahoma on 2018-04-21. ...................................................................................................................... 5 2 RWP low- (left) and high- (right) power consensus-averaged winds recorded on 2020-02-26 at the SGP I8 Facility. ................................................................................................................................ 5 3 An example of a 24-hour display of RASS virtual temperature (units in Co). ....................................... 6 4 An example of adaptive algorithm’s operation switching from wind mode to precipitation mode only when precipitating conditions have been identified. ...................................................................... 7 5 Precipitation effect on the consensus winds. ........................................................................................ 10 6 Low- (bottom) and high- (top) power winds (left) and SNR (right) affected by migrating birds. ....... 11 Tables 1 ARM RWP deployment history at observatories and mobile facilities. ................................................. 2 vi P Muradyan and R Coulter, March 2020, DOE/SC-ARM-TR-044 1.0 General Overview The radar wind profiler (RWP) is an active remote-sensing instrument that can routinely, and virtually unattended, observe wind and turbulence in the troposphere through scattering from clear-air irregularities of the atmospheric refractive index (Gage and Balsley 1978). The principle of Doppler radars in general is based on sending electromagnetic pulses in the vertical and several tilted directions (vertical and oblique beams) and measuring the signal that is scattered back by atmospheric turbulence at all heights and received at the antenna. The RWPs provides measurements of backscattered signal strength and wind profiles nominally between 0.1 km and 6 km. The RWP operation assumes that the wind field