TY  - THES
T1  - 3-D observations of absolute humidity from the land surface to the lower troposphere with scanning differential absorption lidar
A1  - Späth,Florian Heiko
Y1  - 2016/11/21
N2  - The water vapor (WV) distribution in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is spatially and temporally highly variable. To investigate this behavior, the Institute of Physics and Meteorology at the University of Hohenheim (UHOH) developed a unique scanning differential absorption lidar (DIAL). This instrument allows for water vapor measurements with high temporal and spatial resolutions of the orders of seconds and tens of meters in the range of several kilometers from the surface up to the lower troposphere. Additionally, the UHOH DIAL system can perform scanning measurements which allows for observations down to the surface as well as for observations of the horizontal moisture variability.
Within this thesis, three aspects regarding high-resolution observations of moisture in the ABL with scanning DIAL are demonstrated: 1) the development of a new seeder system for the laser transmitter, 2) the presentation of three scan modes, and 3) applications of 2-D to 3-D WV DIAL data.
The newly developed seeder system is based on distributed feedback (DFB) laser diodes as seed lasers and an electro-optical deflector as optical switch. The setup and its specifications are presented.
Scanning measurements were performed to capture the spatial WV structures. For this purpose, three scan modes with measurement examples are presented:
1) Range-height indicator (RHI) scans provide vertical cross-section images of the atmospheric humidity distribution. The presented series of four measurements show several humidity layers with different WV content and their evolution. Clouds appear in the last scan.
2) A volume scan captures the whole three-dimensional WV structure made out of several conical scans of different elevation angles. The horizontal variation of the layer heights can be related to the terrain profile with a small hill near the DIAL site.
3) Low elevation scans observe the WV distribution directly above the surface. Thus, relationships of the ground characteristics and vegetation with the humidity content above can be investigated. It is shown that there was more moisture above a maize field and above a forest than above grassland. For the analysis of scanning measurements, new analysis and visualization routines as well as new methods for the error estimation were developed.
More scientific applications of high-resolution WV data from DIAL measurements are presented in three publications. A evaluation study compared humidity profiles from model simulations with different land-surface schemes with horizontal mean profiles of scanning DIAL measurements. High-resolution humidity fluctuations from vertical measurements were used to determine higher-order moments up to the fourth-order as well as skewness and kurtosis. Furthermore, such WV profiles were combined with profiles of temperature and vertical wind velocities and used for the development of new turbulence parameterizations and for model validation.
KW  - Lidar
KW  - Wasserdampf
KW  - Grenzschicht
KW  - Scanning
KW  - Troposphäre
CY  - Hohenheim
PB  - Kommunikations-, Informations- und Medienzentrum der Universität Hohenheim
AD  - Garbenstr. 15, 70593 Stuttgart
UR  - http://opus.uni-hohenheim.de/volltexte/2016/1290
ER  -