Analysis of Temperature and Velocity Microturbulence Parameters from Aircraft Data and Relationship to Atmospheric Refractive Index Structure

Abstract

Due to inherent turbulence, the atmosphere has a temporally and spatially variable refractive index, which degrades propagating electromagnetic radiation. (C sub n)sq. is a key parameter for describing refractive variations. Data was analyzed from several instruments involved in an electro-optics/ meteorology experiment; scintillometer; thermosonde; radar vertical profiler, and instrumented aircraft. The aircraft measured (C sub T)sq. and (C sub u)sq. using hot and cold wire sensors and FM recording apparatus. The taped data was processed via FFT to produce one-dimensional variance spectra (wavenumber range 0.01 to 10/m). Flights usually produced a 10 km vertical profile processed to give roughly 0.5 km resolution. Spectral editing was based on regression analysis fit to -5/3 frequency dependence. A majority of spectra showed the classic inertial subrange. (C sub n)sq. and epsilon were calculated from (C sub T)sq. and (C sub u)sq., respectively. In active regions, the following relationship can be derived. (C sub T)sq./(C sub u)sq. = 1.6 R sub i/(P sub r - R sub i) (theta/g) (del theta/del z).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1988
Accession Number
ADA196542

Entities

People

  • Elizabeth A. Beecher

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Sensors
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Atmospheric Motion
  • Boundary Layer
  • Buoyancy
  • Databases
  • Detectors
  • Diffraction
  • Electromagnetic Radiation
  • Errors
  • Information Science
  • Measurement
  • Meteorology
  • Optics
  • Regression Analysis
  • Scattering
  • Slope
  • Temperature Gradients

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science
  • Physics

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Data Science/Digital Signal Processing.
  • Spectroscopy.