EAGER: Collaborative Analysis of Doppler Lidar Data from Canopy Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (CHATS)

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Like many sources of remotely-sensed measurements of atmospheric boundary layer structure and motions, Doppler lidar data present a formidable analysis challenge both owing to their voluminous and highly detailed nature and potential for contamination by interfering signals such as those returned from the earth's underlying surface and/or plant canopies. This tightly-scoped research effort will support collaborations between a principal investigator who is well versed in lidar measurements and a canopy-induced turbulence expert at NSF's National Center for Atmospheric Research to pursue improved techniques for accurate yet cost-effective means for more automated processing of lidar data previously collected with NSF support during the Canopy Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (CHATS) in 2007. The intellectual merit of this effort centers on development and application of idealized models of expected coherent structures (such as roll vortices and other phenomena evident in large-eddy simulations and via other means) to provide a labor-saving framework in which raw radial velocity measurements may be more intelligently processed and interpreted. This will in-turn support extraction of improved representations of coherent structures above plant canopies that are responsible for exchange of momentum and trace gases (such as CO2) with the planetary boundary layer. The availability of tandem in-canopy, high-resolution turbulent flux measurements obtained during CHATS to evaluate this previously unproven analysis approach represents a potentially high-payoff research approach. Broader impacts of this effort include improved downstream knowledge of biogeochemical cycles and sources of low-level atmospheric turbulence, as well as enhancements to the lead investigator's classroom education efforts.