Doppler lidar measurements of boundary layer winds and sensible heat flux

During the Convective and Orographically induced Precipitation Study the Salford Universities' Facility for Atmospheric Measurement 1.5 micron scanning Doppler lidar was deployed at Achern, Bavaria, Germany from 13th June to 16th August 2007. Vertical velocity profiles through the boundary layer were measured every 3 minutes with vertical profiles of horizontal wind velocity being derived from performing azimuth scans approximately every 30 minutes. During Intense Observation Periods radiosondes were launched from the site. In this paper, a case of convective development on 15th July 2007 is investigated. Estimates of eddy dissipation rate are made from the vertically pointing lidar data and used as one input to the velocity temperature co-variance equation to estimate sensible heat flux. The assumptions made in this analysis are tested as far as possible.