The structure of turbulence in clouds measured by a high power 94 GHz radar

The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has recently developed a 3–10 kW average, 80 kW peak power 94 GHz radar with scanning capability, WARLOC (W Band Advanced Radar for Low Observable Control). This radar is powered by a gyroklystron developed by a team led by NRL. One application has been to image clouds. New capabilities of WARLOC include imaging with greatly improved sensitivity and detail as well as the ability to detect much lower cloud returns. At short scale lengths (∼10 m), the cloud reflectivity has a speckle pattern indicating that it is governed at least in part by stochastic processes. Here WARLOC is used to measure correlation functions and turbulence spectra in clouds. In the inertial range, the Kolmogorov prediction for the correlation function index (2/3) agrees well with the data, but the assumption of isotropy does not. Furthermore, for longer scale lengths, the fluctuations appear to be wave like in the vertical direction, but not in the horizontal direction.