Estimation of the height of the turbulent mixing layer from data of Doppler lidar measurements using conical scanning by a probe beam

Abstract

Abstract. A method is proposed for determining the height of the turbulent mixing layer on the basis of the vertical profiles of the dissipation rate of turbulent energy, which is estimated from lidar measurements of the radial wind velocity using conical scanning by a probe beam around the vertical axis. The accuracy of the proposed method is discussed in detail. It is shown that for the estimation of the mixing layer height (MLH) with the acceptable relative error not exceeding 20 %, the signal-to-noise ratio should be no less than −16 dB, when the relative error of lidar estimation of the dissipation rate does not exceed 30 %. The method was tested in a 6 d experiment in which the wind velocity turbulence was estimated in smog conditions due to forest fires in Siberia in summer 2019. The results of the experiment reveal that the relative error of determination of the MLH time series obtained by this method does not exceed 10 % in the period of turbulence development. The estimates of the turbulent mixing layer height by the proposed method are in a qualitative agreement with the MLH estimated from the distributions of the Richardson number in height and time obtained during the comparison experiment in spring 2020.