Upper Air Measurements

Author(s):  
Fred V. Brock ◽  
Scott J. Richardson

Measurements of atmospheric properties become progressively more difficult with altitude above the surface of the earth, and even surface measurements are difficult over the oceans. First balloons, then airplanes and rockets, were used to carry instruments aloft to make in-situ measurements. Now remote sensors, both ground-based and satellite-borne, are used to monitor the atmosphere. In this context, upper air means all of the troposphere above the first hundred meters or so and, in some cases, the stratosphere. There are many uncertainties associated with remote sensing, so there is a demand for in-situ sensors to verify remote measurements. In addition, the balloon- borne instrument package is relatively inexpensive. However, it should be noted that cost is a matter of perspective; a satellite with its instrumentation, ground station, etc. may be cost-effective when the mission is to make measurements all over the world with good space and time resolution, as synoptic meteorology demands. Upper air measurements of pressure, temperature, water vapor, and winds can be made using in-situ instrument packages (carried aloft by balloons, rockets, or airplanes) and by remote sensors. Remote sensors can be classified as active (energy emitters like radar or lidar) or passive (receiving only, like microwave radiometers), and by whether they “look” up from the ground or down from a satellite. Remote sensors are surveyed briefly before discussing in-situ instruments. Profiles of temperature, humidity, density, etc. can be estimated from satellites using multiple narrow-band radiometers. These are passive sensors that measure longwave radiation upwelling from the atmosphere. For example, temperature profiles can be estimated from satellites by measuring infrared radiation emitted by CO2 (bands around 5000 μm) and O2 (bands around 3.4μm and 15μm) in the atmosphere. Winds can be estimated from cloud movements or by using the Doppler frequency shift due to some component of the atmosphere being carried along with the wind. An active sensor (radar) is used to estimate precipitation and, if it is a Doppler radar, determine winds. The great advantage of satellite-borne instruments is that they can cover the whole earth with excellent spatial resolution.

Author(s):  
Mohammad Houkan ◽  
Omar Shehata ◽  
Karthik Kannan ◽  
John-John Cabibihan ◽  
Aboubakr M. Abdullah ◽  
...  

Conversion of CO2 into fuel is an interesting and promising field. However, the conversion yield is hard to measure during the conversion process. Here, we have developed two techniques to measure the amount of CO2 while the reaction is taking place. First method is colorimetry, where a chemical is added to the solution, and it changes color depending on the resulting product. The second method is the atomization of the resulting solution. Thereafter, the results were measured by a gas sensor. The prepared sensors are cost effective and portable to use.


Author(s):  
Mampi Sarkar ◽  
Paquita Zuidema ◽  
Virendra Ghate

AbstractPrecipitation is a key process within the shallow cloud lifecycle. The Cloud System Evolution in the Trades (CSET) campaign included the first deployment of a 94 GHz Doppler radar and 532 nm lidar. Despite a larger sampling volume, initial mean radar/lidar retrieved rain rates (Schwartz et al. 2019) based on the upward-pointing remote sensor datasets are systematically less than those measured by in-situ precipitation probes in the cumulus regime. Subsequent retrieval improvements produce rainrates that compare better to in-situ values, but still underestimate. Retrieved shallow cumulus drop sizes can remain too small and too few, with an overestimated shape parameter narrowing the raindrop size distribution too much. Three potential causes for the discrepancy are explored: the gamma functional fit to the dropsize distribution, attenuation by rain and cloud water, and an underaccounting of Mie dampening of the reflectivity. A truncated exponential fit may represent the dropsizes below a showering cumulus cloud more realistically, although further work would be needed to fully evaluate the impact of a different dropsize representation upon the retrieval. The rain attenuation is within the measurement uncertainty of the radar. Mie dampening of the reflectivity is shown to be significant, in contrast to previous stratocumulus campaigns with lighter rain rates, and may be difficult to constrain well with the remote measurements. An alternative approach combines an a priori determination of the dropsize distribution width based on the in-situ data with the mean radar Doppler velocity and reflectivity. This can produce realistic retrievals, although a more comprehensive assessment is needed to better characterize the retrieval errors.


Author(s):  
J. C. Kaimal ◽  
J. J. Finnigan

Sensors used for boundary layer measurements fall into two broad categories: in situ sensors that can be mounted on the ground, on masts, towers, tethered balloons, free balloons, or aircraft; and remote sensors, ground-based or aircraft-mounted, that infer atmospheric properties through their effects on acoustic, microwave, and optical signals propagating through the air. In situ sensors are the traditional instruments of choice for surface and lower boundary layer studies, being the only ones capable of the accuracy and resolution needed for quantitative work. A major portion of this chapter will therefore be devoted to discussions of their characteristics. Remote sensors have the advantage of increased range and spatial scanning capability, but the constraints on minimum range and spatial resolution limit their usefulness for surface layer measurements. Used in combination, however, the two types of sensors provide a more complete description of the flow field being studied than either of the two can provide separately. New remote sensors with shorter minimum ranges and finer range resolutions are now becoming available for boundary layer applications. A brief discussion of such devices is also included in this chapter. The variables of greatest interest to boundary layer meteorologists are wind speed, temperature, humidity, and the fluxes of momentum, heat, mass, and radiant energy. Given suitable fast-response measurements of wind velocity and scalar fluctuations, we can calculate the eddy fluxes directly from the products of their fluctuating components as explained in Chapter 1. If only the gradients of their means are available, however, then over a flat homogeneous surface the fluxes may be inferred from the Monin-Obukhov relationships of Chapters 1 and 3. Practical methods for doing that are described in many texts; see, for example, Monteith (1975, 1976). (Those simple relationships do not hold, as we know, under advective conditions, in plant canopies, and over hills.) There are also sensors in use that measure surface and near-surface fluxes directly, such as the drag plate (surface stress), the lysimeter (latent heat flux), flux plates (soil heat flux), and radiometers (radiant heat flux). We will discuss these and a few other types as well because of their application to studies of plant canopies.


Author(s):  
Howard B. Bluestein

In the past four decades much has been discovered about tornado formation and structure from observations, laboratory models, and numerical-simulation experiments. Observations include nearby movies and photographs of tornadoes, fixed-site, airborne, and ground-based mobile Doppler radar remote measurements, and in situ measurements using instrumented probes. Laboratory models are vortex chambers and numerical-simulations are based on the governing fluid dynamical equations. However, questions remain: How and why do tornadoes form? and How does the wind field associated with them vary in space and time? Recent studies of tornadoes based on observations, particularly by radar, are detailed. The major aspects of numerically simulating a tornado and its formation are reviewed, and the dynamics of tornado formation and structure based on both observations and laboratory and numerical-simulation experiments are described. Finally, future avenues of research and suggested instrument development for furthering our knowledge are discussed.


Author(s):  
Howard B. Bluestein

In the past four decades much has been discovered about tornado formation and structure from observations, laboratory models, and numerical-simulation experiments. Observations include nearby movies and photographs of tornadoes, fixed-site, airborne, and ground-based mobile Doppler radar remote measurements, and in situ measurements using instrumented probes. Laboratory models are vortex chambers and numerical-simulations are based on the governing fluid dynamical equations. However, questions remain: How and why do tornadoes form? and How does the wind field associated with them vary in space and time? Recent studies of tornadoes based on observations, particularly by radar, are detailed. The major aspects of numerically simulating a tornado and its formation are reviewed, and the dynamics of tornado formation and structure based on both observations and laboratory and numerical-simulation experiments are described. Finally, future avenues of research and suggested instrument development for furthering our knowledge are discussed.


MRS Bulletin ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 400-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Ferdinand ◽  
Sylvain Magne ◽  
Véronique Dewynter-Marty ◽  
Stéphane Rougeault ◽  
Laurent Maurin

AbstractOptical-fiber sensors based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) provide accurate, nonintrusive, and reliable remote measurements of temperature, strain, and pressure, and they are immune to electromagnetic interference. FBGs are extensively used in telecommunications, and their manufacture is now cost-effective. As sensors, FBGs find many industrial applications in composite structures used in the civil engineering, aeronautics, train transportation, space, and naval sectors. Tiny FBG sensors embedded in a composite material can provide in situ information about polymer curing (strain, temperature, refractive index) in an elegant and nonintrusive way. Great improvements in composite manufacturing processes such as resin transfer molding (RTM) and resin film infusion (RFI) have been obtained through the use of these sensors. They can also be used in monitoring the “health” of a composite structure and in impact detection to evaluate, for example, the airworthiness of aircraft. Finally, FBGs may be used in instrumentation as composite extensometers or strain rosettes, primarily in civil engineering applications.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Lei Chen ◽  
Ke Zhang ◽  
Xiangwei Zhu ◽  
Yangbo Huang ◽  
Gang Ou ◽  
...  

GNSS’s orbit determinations always rely on ground station or intersatellite links (ISL). In the emergency of satellite-to-ground links and ISL break-off, BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) satellites cannot determine their orbits. In this paper, we propose to add a spaceborne annular beam antenna for receiving the global positioning system (GPS) and global navigation satellite system (GLONASS) signals; therefore, the BDS satellites may be capable of determining their orbits by GPS/GLONASS signals. Firstly, the spectrum selection, the power isolation, the range of Doppler frequency shift, and changing rate are taken into account for the feasibility. Specifically, the L2 band signals are chosen for receiving and processing in order to prevent the overlapping of the receiving and transmitting signals. Secondly, the minimum number of visible satellites (MNVS), carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N0), dilution of precision (GDOP), and geometric distance root-mean-square (gdrms) are evaluated for acquiring the effective receiving antennas’ coverage ranges. Finally, the scheme of deploying 3 receiving antennas is proved to be optimal by analysis and simulations over the middle earth orbit (MEO), geostationary earth orbit (GEO), and the inclined geosynchronous satellite orbit (IGSO). The antennas’ structures and patterns are designed to draw a conclusion that installing GPS and GLONASS receivers on BDS satellites for emergent orbits determination is cost-effective.


Microscopy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoguang Li ◽  
Kazutaka Mitsuishi ◽  
Masaki Takeguchi

Abstract Liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (LCTEM) enables imaging of dynamic processes in liquid with high spatial and temporal resolution. The widely used liquid cell (LC) consists of two stacking microchips with a thin wet sample sandwiched between them. The vertically overlapped electron-transparent membrane windows on the microchips provide passage for the electron beam. However, microchips with imprecise dimensions usually cause poor alignment of the windows and difficulty in acquiring high-quality images. In this study, we developed a new and efficient microchip fabrication process for LCTEM with a large viewing area (180 µm × 40 µm) and evaluated the resultant LC. The new positioning reference marks on the surface of the Si wafer dramatically improve the precision of dicing the wafer, making it possible to accurately align the windows on two stacking microchips. The precise alignment led to a liquid thickness of 125.6 nm close to the edge of the viewing area. The performance of our LC was demonstrated by in situ transmission electron microscopy imaging of the dynamic motions of 2-nm Pt particles. This versatile and cost-effective microchip production method can be used to fabricate other types of microchips for in situ electron microscopy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 100773
Author(s):  
Kamoldara Reansuwan ◽  
Rotsukon Jawana ◽  
Saoharit Nitayavardhana ◽  
Sirichai Koonaphapdeelert
Keyword(s):  

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