Determination of Planetary Boundary Layer Height from Ground Based Wind Profiler and Lidar Measurements using the Covariance Wavelet Transform (CWT)
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Date
2012-01-01
Type of Work
Department
Physics
Program
Physics, Atmospheric
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This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu.
Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan through a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan through a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Abstract
This thesis documents the application of the Covariance Wavelet Transform (CWT) to lidar and, for the first time to our knowledge, wind profiler data to examine the possibility of accurate and continuous planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) measurements on short temporal resolution (one and fifteen minute averages respectively). Comparisons between PBLHs derived from the Elastic Lidar Facility (ELF) through application of the CWT and daytime radiosonde launches from Beltsville and RFK Stadium as part of the September 2009 NOAA/ARL and NCEP field study show an R2 = 0.84 correlation. PBLHs from ELF aided in diagnosing issues with the automatic PBLH calculation from Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) profiles in the Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis used by plume dispersion modelers. Determining the mixing in the PBL was one goal of a study of the spatial and diurnal variations of the PBL height over Maryland for July 2011, during NASA's Earth Venture mission DISCOVER-AQ. A semi-automated PBLH detection algorithm utilizing the CWT for wind profiler data was developed. This algorithm was tested on data from the 915 MHz wind profiler at Beltsville, Maryland, and compared against PBLHs derived from ground based radiosondes measured at Beltsville. Comparisons were also done between PBLHs derived from ground based lidars at UMBC and Beltsville. Results from the comparison show an R2 = 0.89, 0.92, and 0.94 correlation between the radiosonde PBLHs and the lidars and wind profiler PBLHs, respectively. Accurate determination of the PBLH by applying the CWT to lidar and wind profilers will allow for improved air quality forecasting and understanding of regional pollution dynamics.