OBSERVING THE BOUNDARY LAYER - OVERVIEW OF OBSERVING SYSTEMS

• A great deal of our knowledge of the boundary layer structure and evolution comes from observations.
• Generally speaking, there are two types of observing systems that have been utilized:
  • IN SITU (in the position of):
    • examples include:
      • surface weather stations
      • portable mesonet stations
      • instrumented towers
      • balloon soundings
      • aircraft
      • tetroons
      • tethersondes
  • REMOTE SENSING:
    • examples include:
      • Doppler radars (like the WSR-88D)
      • profilers
      • RASS (radio acoustic sounding system)
      • sodars
      • lidars
      • photogrammetry
• So, let's examine each of these in detail.