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Wind Profilers Added to Vaisala Product Range

Now that profilers have been added to its ith the acquisition Wave Propagation Laboratory. product selection, Vaisala now has a full range of the Radian Me- The profiler was refined for of atmospheric remote sensing instruments to W teorological Systems commercial use by Radian so group, Vaisala’s pro- that it could be brought to the assist its customers in meeting a wide range of duct range now includes wind market. requirements. The applications of wind profiling profilers, in the form of the include meteorological and climatological re- LAP®-3000 wind profiler prod- Vertical profiles of wind uct line. Vaisala profiler pro- speed and direction search, aviation, air quality monitoring and re- duction and engineering opera- search, defense operations and land resource tions are based in Boulder, The LAP®-3000 Wind Profiler is management. Additionally, wind profilers are Colorado (USA). The location a “lower atmosphere profiler” – in close proximity to the with a range of approximately used at airports to protect against vertical wind NOAA laboratories and 3000 meters. The remote sens- shear, and in urban areas for urban airshed mod- National Center for Atmos- ing Doppler produces a eling. pheric Research, NCAR – en- profile of vertical and horizon- courages scientific cooperation tal up to three kilometers and coordination. or more above ground level. The profile includes wind speed The result of a and direction. Vaisala produces cooperation program the Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) with technolo- The LAP®-3000 Wind Profiler gy developed at the National was designed in a cooperation Oceanic and Atmospheric program between the U.S. Administration. RASS can National Oceanic and measure vertical profiles of vir- Atmospheric Administration tual temperature in the lower (NOAA), Sonoma Technology troposphere, and can be inte- Inc., and Radian International grated with a wind profiler of LLC (Radian). In accordance any frequency to augment the George L. Frederick with the 1991 Cooperative profiler’s capabilities. When a General Manager Research and Development Radio Acoustic Sounding Vaisala Meteorological Agreement (CRADA), the System (RASS) is integrated Systems Inc LAP®-3000 boundary layer pro- with the LAP®-3000, the profile Boulder filer was developed at NOAA’s includes virtual temperature up USA Aeronomy Laboratory and to approximately 1.2 kilome-

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ters. The profiler produces these Many established users data by transmitting in three or five orthogonal pointing direc- Current government users of the tions. After transmitting a sig- LAP®-3000 include NOAA, the nal upwards, the profiler re- National Center for Atmospheric ceives the return signals that are Research (NCAR), the National reflected back by the turbulence Aeronautics and Space Admini- in the atmosphere. Then the stration (NASA), the U.S. Depart- profiler computes the wind ment of Defense (DoD), and the speed and direction for the se- U.S. Department of Energy lected number of heights above (DoE), the Royal Netherlands the ground. In this way, the Meteorological Institute (KNMI), LAP®-3000 provides continu- In a typical system set-up, wind and temperature data can be viewed the Swiss Meteorological Insti- ous, real-time atmospheric visually using Graph-XM software. tute, and the Deutscher Wetter- wind and temperature data with dienst (German Weather Service). high spatial resolution. Current U.S. and international Furthermore, the LAP®-3000 Possibilities for versatile in graphic or tabular format. private users include air-quality can operate unattended and/or data presentation Several display options are districts, airports, universities, networked to another location. available to meet varied cus- and utility companies. The LAP-XM® software on the tomer needs. For instance, the System components radar computer is modular, development trends are clearly Other products Windows-based and can be ex- presented in spectral format for The LAP®-3000 System consists panded. It receives signal data, the needs of engineers and re- Vaisala also produces a number of the wind profiler processes it, computes meteor- searchers whereas Graph-XM of other radar-related products (housed in a shelter) and a PC ological data products and pre- shows wind and temperature in Boulder. The LAP®-16000 is a and server, along with associat- sents the data visually. Ad- data in what is a more standard tropospheric wind profiler that ed software for processing the ditionally, the LAP-XM® saves format. operates in the range of 400-500 data. The PC is fitted with a re- and transfers data products as MHz and can measure winds ceiver/modulator unit, inter- well as converts them into new Numerous applications up to 16 km above the ground. face unit and radar computer formats. The software enables It employs much of the same boards. A profiler monitor op- the profiler to be controlled Customers both in the public signal processing capability of tion is available for mainte- from remote locations, and and private sector use the the LAP®-3000 but uses a differ- nance and system control. monitors both the profiler LAP®-3000 for a variety of ap- ent amplifier and has different Peripherals include a printer, an hardware and the transfer of plications, including: antenna architecture. Another optional uninterruptible power data products. Moreover, for application of CRADA tech- supply unit (UPS) and a surge enhanced use, the user-friendly • Atmospheric boundary nology is the 8mm Cloud radar suppression outlet strip. Other profiling software is compatible layer research that operates in the K-band. options available include an ex- with common office applica- • Air pollution research The Cloud radar employs spe- tended antenna aperture op- tions, such as Excel and Word. • Emergency response cialized electronic and signal tion, an antenna-mounting The wind profiling data can • Global climate change processing technology to pro- frame, a snow cover and a trail- be printed out, but would usu- studies duce a relatively low cost, high- er option. ally be viewed on a PC screen • Aviation operations ly reliable instrument to mea- • Mesoscale meteorological sure cloud boundaries, cloud forecasting layers, and Doppler velocities • Defense operations within clouds. Another variant, • Forest fire management the S-Band Precipitating-Cloud • Urban airshed modeling Radar System, measures back- • Weather modification scatter, spectral width, mean • Offshore, shipboard, and noise level, full Doppler spec- airborne platforms tra, and Doppler velocity of • Arctic/Antarctic research precipitating clouds from 250 • Optical turbulence meters above the ground to al- measurements titudes in excess of 20 km. For further information, please contact George Frederick at Vaisala Meteorological Systems, Inc., 5600 Airport Blvd., Boulder CO 80301 USA. Tel: 303-402- ® The mobility of the LAP -3000 4728, Fax: 303-443-1628, E-mail Wind Profiler can be increased by [email protected]. mounting the LAP®-3000 on a Visit the Vaisala web site for fur- trailer. ther details.

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