Scintillometer Wind Measurements over Complex Terrain

Abstract

Several large-aperture scintillometers were built at the Paul Scherrer Institute with the aim to measure wind over complex terrain. A prototype instrument was tested over flat ground, and the performance of six analyzing techniques was evaluated by comparing them with conventional anemometers. Next, a set of five improved scintillometers was used in an experiment over complex terrain. This experiment represents a unique opportunity for evaluating scintillometer performance by comparing their results to sodar, aircraft, and ground station measurements. The results complement and partly contradict the observations previously published; the so-called peak technique is the most reliable and frequency techniques fail to provide faithful results in many cases. The measurements demonstrate that scintillometry is useful and reliable for wind and turbulence measurements over complex terrain.