ESTIMATION OF THE SENSIBLE HEAT-FLUX AND THE TEMPERATURE STRUCTURE PARAMETER BY SODAR AND SONIC ANEMOMETER - AN INTERCOMPARISON

In the summer 1990, a field campaign was conducted to evaluate the capabilities of a commercially available sodar and to determine the sensible heat flux and the temperature structure parameter. A sonic anemometer-thermometer mounted 100 m above ground level on a 200 m high meteorological tower and the sodar were operated simultaneously providing 0.5 hr mean values. The calculation of the heat flux is based on the eddy correlation method with sonic data as well as on the standard deviation of the vertical wind speed and the backscattered amplitude measured by the sodar. The temperature structure parameter is estimated from sonic data and the sodar backscattered amplitude using similarity theory. The intercomparison of the data of sonic and sodar is based on time series and a linear regression and correlation analysis. Our investigation shows that a sodar is capable of estimating heat flux and temperature structure parameter with satisfactory accuracy under convective conditions.