The Design and Operation of a Microbarograph Array to Measure Pressure Drag on the Mesoscale

Abstract

During the ALPEX field program, pressure was measured along three Alpine cross sections. In order to attain high accuracy, pressure sensors had to be protected against the influence of wind-induced dynamic pressure effects and against gravity wave signals. Corrections based on pre- and postexperiment laboratory and on biweekly field calibrations enabled the compilation of a pressure dataset with an estimated absolute accuracy of 0.3 hPa and a relative accuracy of about 0.1 hPa. Time series plots and time-space plots of the data were generated for quality control purposes.