Detection of inversions and mixing height by REMTECH PA2 sodar in comparison with collocated radiosonde measurements

A REMTECH PA2 Doppler Sodar is operated regularly at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) observatory in Prague, collocated with a routine rawinsonde sounding system. The Air Pollution Control Division of CHMI utilises the sodar data in air pollution studies and as an information support for the smog warning system operated in Prague. Besides of the basic software for echo strength and wind profile evaluation, optional routines for deriving parameters such as inversion and mixing height, stability class etc, were delivered by the sodar manufacturer. Based on a sufficiently large data set (more than one year) of synchronous sodar and rawinsonde measurements, an analysis and comparison of inversion and mixing heights provided by both sounding systems have been accomplished in order to evaluate the correctness and accuracy of sodar estimates of these parameters. In contrast to the wind speed and wind direction data, for which a satisfactory agreement with other kind of measurements has been reported by many studies, the results for inversion and mixing height detection were totally disappointing. A direct applicability of inversion height and mixing height data provided by the REMTECH's automatic routines in air pollution studies or smog warning systems is quite problematical with the present "state of the art".