The Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment Southeast (VORTEX-SE) provides a wealth of long-duration, high-resolution, vertically pointing observations from active and passive ground-based remote sensing systems enabling characterization of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) development over distinct regions that are well known for their relatively high tornado frequency. Application of the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to BL height estimation in the convective regime (CBLH) of the diurnal cycle from S-band radar reflectivity observations1 has shown to yield accurate results under simple CBL conditions. In this work, we revisit the radar-EKF technique and investigate its main limitations. For example, during daytime clear-sky conditions such as those prevailing in the BL morning transition, weak turbulence leads to very low reflectivity returns, limiting application of this technique. Additionally, turbulent mixing layers capped with a residual layer, and/or multi-layer scenarios can lead the filter to lose track of the BL signature over time. Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) observations of the vertical wind velocity variance2 provide complementary CBLH estimates to those of the radar-EKF combination, providing potential to disambiguate more complex convective cases. DWL estimates are, however, strongly influenced by the variance threshold selected. The complementarity of radar and DWL for CBLH estimation is studied in reference to radiosoundings.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.