Abstract

A technological advance in measuring high-vertical-resolution temperature profiles in the lower and middle troposphere has recently come forth as the result of studies using Radio Acoustic Sounding Systems (RASS). RASS combines radar and acoustic techniques to obtain vertical profiles of the speed of sound, from which virtual temperature profiles are calculated (Marshall et al. 1972; May et al. 1989). RASS measures nearly continuous temperature profiles with the same vertical resolution as the wind profiler. Although RASS cannot yet measure temperatures to heights attained by the 12-hourly rawinsonde (>15 km), it can, with 15 min temporal resolution, resolve the temporal evolution and vertical structure of lower-tropospheric temperature features associated with locally enhanced stable layers, frontal zones, and land-sea breeze circulations.

© 1990 Optical Society of America