Analyses of Aircraft Measurement of Atmospheric Turbulence

The analysis of high resolution turbulence measurements obtained over 8 years from a unique aircraft platform have shed light on the phenomena of clear air turbulence (CAT) and optical turbulence (OpT) in the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere (UTLS) and how they may adversely impact systems o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hacker, Jorg M, Wroblewski, Don
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
AIRCRAFT
AIRCRAFT CONTROL
Atmospheric Physics
ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
CLEAR AIR TURBULENCE
DNS(DIRECT NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS)
Fluid Mechanics
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MEASUREMENT
Meteorology
OPTICAL TURBULENCE
PREDICTIONS
RICHARDSON NUMBER
TEMPERATURE
TURBULENCE
VELOCITY
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Summary:The analysis of high resolution turbulence measurements obtained over 8 years from a unique aircraft platform have shed light on the phenomena of clear air turbulence (CAT) and optical turbulence (OpT) in the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere (UTLS) and how they may adversely impact systems of interest to the Air Force. Some notable results include 1. Characterization of cliff-ramp patterns and the use of DNS to provide insight into how cliff-ramps can be used to infer characteristics of CAT layers. 2. The first-of-its kind compilation of structure function behavior at sub km-scales from a large data set of UTLS measurements, and in particular the identification of the decoupling of small and large scale behavior. 3. The development of a simple EXCEL-based tool for quickly visualizing Richardson number profiles from radisosonde data, providing a global but coarse view of turbulence potential. 4. Identification of scale-dependent behavior of length scale ratios critical for structure parameter modeling. In spite of this progress, the full potential of this work will be achieved only with continued effort to address critical questions that inevitably arose as part of such an extensive multi-year effort. These include the connection between Richardson number and CT2, the effect of time dependency seen in DNS of stratified turbulence and its affect on the ability to predict both CAT and OpT, and the importance of scale-dependent behavior of the length scale ratios for model development. The author hopes that the results of work reported here will provide motivation for further experimental campaigns and more detailed comparisons between field data and direct numerical simulations in an effort to further our understanding of stratified turbulence and its impact on Aerospace systems. Prepared in cooperation with Zentropy Consulting, LLC.