Analysis of the Optical Turbulence Model Using Meteorological Data

Abstract

The model of atmosphere optical turbulence is important in the research field of laser atmospheric transmission, and plays a key role in astronomical site selection. In this paper, the single and overall statistical analysis between different outer scale models (HMNSP99 and the Dewan model) were conducted and the results show that the HMNSP99 model has better performance with the lowest bias, root mean square error, and center root mean square error. The results of the statistical analysis of three turbulence parameters revealed that there is a correlation between turbulence parameters and statistical operators, where statistical operators increase significantly when wind shear and temperature gradient respectively exceed 0.016 s−1, 0 K/m, and the outer scale is within 2.5 m. Furthermore, a new statistical outer-scale model, the WSTG model, is proposed and the results of statistical analysis present that the WSTG model is more reliable than the HMNSP99 model in reconstructing optical turbulence strength. These results acquired from this paper add substantially to our understanding of atmosphere optical turbulence and the conclusions can be applied to improve the performance of an adaptive optics system and astronomical site selection.