Long-term measurement and characterization of boundary layer optical turbulence

Christopher Jellen; Charles Nelson; Cody Brownell; John Burkhardt

doi:10.1364/JOSAA.520980

Journal of the Optical Society of America A
Vol. 41,
Issue 6,
pp. B65-B72
(2024)
•https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAA.520980

Long-term measurement and characterization of boundary layer optical turbulence

Christopher Jellen, Charles Nelson, Cody Brownell, and John Burkhardt

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Christopher Jellen, Charles Nelson, Cody Brownell, and John Burkhardt, "Long-term measurement and characterization of boundary layer optical turbulence," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 41, B65-B72 (2024)

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Abstract

The United States Naval Academy long-term scintillation measurement campaign was a multi-year effort to characterize optical turbulence in the near-maritime atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). At its core, the field experiment consists of in situ measurements of bulk atmospheric and oceanographic parameters, as well as path-averaged measurements of the refractive index structure parameter, $C_n^2$, collected using a large-aperture scintillometer. The field experiment ran from January 1st, 2020, through September 26th, 2023, representing the most comprehensive collection of optical turbulence measurements in the near-maritime ABL to date. Long-term measurements enable researchers to evaluate existing theory and develop new models applicable to this environment. The present study characterizes some of the physical relationships that affect optical turbulence. This characterization focuses on the relationship between local optical turbulence and select atmospheric and oceanographic parameters. The impact of temperature gradients on the extent of optical turbulence was analyzed, along with its interactions with relative humidity and wind speed. The diurnal and seasonal variations in measured $C_n^2$ were examined, with comparisons drawn against other environments. Further information and the full dataset are publicly available through the optical turbulence benchmark repository [Jellen et al., GitHub, 2023].

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Data availability

The data underlying this study are publicly available as usna_cn2_full through [17], the optical turbulence benchmark repository [11].

17. C. Jellen, C. Nelson, J. Burkhardt, et al., “otbench: effective benchmarks for optical turbulence modeling,” GitHub (2023), https://github.com/cdjellen/otbench.

11. C. Jellen, C. Nelson, J. Burkhardt, et al., “Effective benchmarks for optical turbulence modeling,” arXiv, arXiv:2401.03573 (2024). [CrossRef]

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	Parameter	Short Name	Description	Units	Heights [m]
Station `8575512`	Wind direction	Dir.10m	Mean wind direction	°	10
	Wind speed	Spd.10m	Mean wind speed	${m s}^{- 1}$	10
	Air pressure	P.10m	Barometric pressure	mbar	10
	Air temperature	T.5m	Ambient air temperature	°C	5
	Water temperature	T.0m	Water surface temperature	°C	0
Vantage PRO2	Wind direction	Dir.3m	Mean wind direction	${m s}^{- 1}$	3
	Wind speed	Spd.3m	Mean wind speed	${m s}^{- 1}$	3
	Air pressure	P.3m	Barometric pressure	mbar	3
	Air temperature	T.3m	Ambient air temperature	°C	3
	Relative humidity	RH.3m	Ambient relative humidity	%	3
	Solar radiation	Rad.1m	Incoming total solar radiation at ground level	$W^{2} m^{- 1}$	1
TPLM2	Water temperature	T.0m.2	Water surface temperature	°C	0
BLS 450	Refractive index structure parameter $C_{n}^{2}$	Cn2.3m	Optical turbulence strength	$m^{- \frac{2}{3}}$	3

	Parameter	Short Name	Mean Value	St. Dev.	Count	Units
Station `8575512`	Wind direction	Dir.10m	198.3	97	285,609	°
	Wind speed	Spd.10m	2.8	1.9	285,609	${m s}^{- 1}$
	Air pressure	P.10m	1016.8	7.3	319,660	mbar
	Air temperature	T.5m	15.2	9.2	326,854	°C
	Water temperature	T.0m	18.1	8.9	284,830	°C
Vantage PRO2	Wind speed	Spd.3m	1.2	0.97	185191	${m s}^{- 1}$
	Air pressure	P.3m	1017.7	7.6	185,189	mbar
	Air temperature	T.3m	15.9	9.7	183,279	°C
	Relative humidity	RH.3m	74.3	16.3	183,313	%
	Solar radiation	Rad.1m	168.5	259	183,393	$W^{2} m^{- 1}$
`TPLM2`	Water temperature	T.0m.2	15.0	8.9	21,940	°C
BLS 450	Refractive index structure parameter $C_{n}^{2}$	Cn2.3m	$1.83 \times 10^{- 14}$	$3.49 \times 10^{- 14}$	1,775,479	$m^{- \frac{2}{3}}$

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
$C_{n}^{2}$ ( $m^{- \frac{2}{3}}$ )	$2.10 \times 10^{- 14}$	$2.77 \times 10^{- 14}$	$2.62 \times 10^{- 14}$	$1.89 \times 10^{- 14}$	$1.48 \times 10^{- 14}$	$9.65 \times 10^{- 15}$	$1.01 \times 10^{- 14}$	$1.24 \times 10^{- 14}$	$1.72 \times 10^{- 14}$	$1.79 \times 10^{- 14}$	$2.54 \times 10^{- 14}$	$2.22 \times 10^{- 14}$
AWT (°C)	−2.2	−1.0	−0.5	−0.9	−1.7	−1.7	−2.2	−3.1	−3.9	−3.8	−3.6	−2.9
Daytime	−1.5	−0.1	0.5	0.3	−0.7	−0.7	−1.1	−2.0	−2.7	−2.7	−2.4	−2.1
Nighttime	−2.8	−1.6	−1.5	−2.3	−3.0	−3.2	−3.8	−4.4	−5.12	−4.8	−4.5	−3.4

	Parameter	Short Name	Description	Units	Heights [m]
Station `8575512`	Wind direction	Dir.10m	Mean wind direction	°	10
	Wind speed	Spd.10m	Mean wind speed	${m s}^{- 1}$	10
	Air pressure	P.10m	Barometric pressure	mbar	10
	Air temperature	T.5m	Ambient air temperature	°C	5
	Water temperature	T.0m	Water surface temperature	°C	0
Vantage PRO2	Wind direction	Dir.3m	Mean wind direction	${m s}^{- 1}$	3
	Wind speed	Spd.3m	Mean wind speed	${m s}^{- 1}$	3
	Air pressure	P.3m	Barometric pressure	mbar	3
	Air temperature	T.3m	Ambient air temperature	°C	3
	Relative humidity	RH.3m	Ambient relative humidity	%	3
	Solar radiation	Rad.1m	Incoming total solar radiation at ground level	$W^{2} m^{- 1}$	1
TPLM2	Water temperature	T.0m.2	Water surface temperature	°C	0
BLS 450	Refractive index structure parameter $C_{n}^{2}$	Cn2.3m	Optical turbulence strength	$m^{- \frac{2}{3}}$	3

	Parameter	Short Name	Mean Value	St. Dev.	Count	Units
Station `8575512`	Wind direction	Dir.10m	198.3	97	285,609	°
	Wind speed	Spd.10m	2.8	1.9	285,609	${m s}^{- 1}$
	Air pressure	P.10m	1016.8	7.3	319,660	mbar
	Air temperature	T.5m	15.2	9.2	326,854	°C
	Water temperature	T.0m	18.1	8.9	284,830	°C
Vantage PRO2	Wind speed	Spd.3m	1.2	0.97	185191	${m s}^{- 1}$
	Air pressure	P.3m	1017.7	7.6	185,189	mbar
	Air temperature	T.3m	15.9	9.7	183,279	°C
	Relative humidity	RH.3m	74.3	16.3	183,313	%
	Solar radiation	Rad.1m	168.5	259	183,393	$W^{2} m^{- 1}$
`TPLM2`	Water temperature	T.0m.2	15.0	8.9	21,940	°C
BLS 450	Refractive index structure parameter $C_{n}^{2}$	Cn2.3m	$1.83 \times 10^{- 14}$	$3.49 \times 10^{- 14}$	1,775,479	$m^{- \frac{2}{3}}$

Abstract

Data availability

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Figures (7)

Tables (3)

Journal of the Optical Society of America A