Determination of the Turbulent Temperature–Humidity Correlation from Scintillometric Measurements

We report on the investigation and successful application of the bichromatic correlation of optical and microwave signals for determining the area-averaged correlation of temperature–humidity fluctuations. The additional technical effort is marginal compared to the common ‘two-wavelength method’, which has (in contrast) the restriction that only two of the three relevant meteorological structure parameters can be deduced. Therefore, in the past, it was often assumed that the turbulent humidity and temperature fluctuations are perfectly positively or negatively correlated. However, as shown in this study, over non-homogeneous terrain when the flow conditions are not ideal, this assumption is questionable. The measurements were analysed statistically, and were compared to in situ measurements of the Bowen ratio Bo and the correlation of temperature–humidity fluctuations using eddy-covariance techniques. The latter is in good agreement to that derived by scintillometry. We found that the correlation is not ±1 but as low as −0.6 for Bo smaller than −2, and up to 0.8 for Bo larger than 1.

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