Volume-imaging UHF radar measurement of atmospheric turbulence

The Turbulent Eddy Profiler (TEP) developed at the University of Massachusetts Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (MIRSL) provides three dimensional fine-scale imagery of the intensity of clear-air backscatter and motion of the air with 30 meter resolution between 200 m and 2.0 km altitude.; This dissertation presents the design and operation of the updated TEP system deployed in Leon, Kansas during CASES'99 experiment. Both Doppler Beam Swinging (DBS) techniques and Spaced Antenna (SA) techniques for estimating horizontal winds were applied to TEP data collected during CASES'99 experiment. This dissertation compares the results from both techniques with the simultaneous in situ Tethered Lifting System (TLS) data. Good agreement between both methods is observed at intermediate altitudes, however, DBS appears to be preferable to SA at higher altitudes where SNR is low; while SA appears to perform better at the low altitudes, where ground clutter competes with the clear-air echo.