Turbulence fluxes and variances measured with a sonic anemometer mounted on a tethered balloon

Guylaine Canut (1) , Fleur Couvreux (1) , Marie Lothon (2) , Dominique Legain (1) , Bruno Piguet (1) , Astrid Lampert , William Maurel (1) , Eric Moulin (1)

1 CNRM - Centre national de recherches météorologiques
2 LAERO - Laboratoire d'aérologie

This study presents the first deployment in field campaigns of a balloon-borne turbulence probe, developed with a sonic anemometer and an inertial motion sensor suspended below a tethered balloon. This system measures temperature and horizontal and vertical wind at high frequency and allows the estimation of heat and momentum fluxes as well as turbulent kinetic energy in the lower part of the boundary layer. The system was validated during three field experiments with different convective boundary-layer conditions, based on turbulent measurements from instrumented towers and aircraft.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Guylaine Canut, Fleur Couvreux, Marie Lothon, Dominique Legain, Bruno Piguet, et al.. Turbulence fluxes and variances measured with a sonic anemometer mounted on a tethered balloon. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 2016, 9, pp.4375-4386. ⟨10.5194/amt-9-4375-2016⟩. ⟨insu-03668327⟩