LOTOS: A Proposed Lower Tropospheric Observing System from the Land Surface through the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Abstract:

Advances in sensor capabilities, but also in electronics, optics, RF communication, and off-the-grid power are enabling new measurement paradigms. NCAR’s Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) is considering new sensors, new deployment modes, and integrated observing strategies to address challenges in understanding within the atmospheric boundary layer and the underlying coupling to the land surface.

Our vision is of a network of deployable observing sites, each with a suite of complementary instruments that measure surface-atmosphere exchange, and the state and evolution of the boundary layer. EOL has made good progress on distributed surface energy balance and flux stations, and on boundary layer remote sensing of wind and water vapor, all suitable for deployments of combined instruments and as network of such sites.

We will present the status of the CentNet surface network development, the 449-MHz modular wind profiler, and a water vapor and temperature profiling differential absorption lidar (DIAL) under development. We will further present a concept for a test bed to better understand the value of these and other possible instruments in forming an instrument suite flexible for multiple research purposes.