Evaluation of Sodar methods for the determination of the atmospheric boundary layer mixing height

Summary

It is the purpose of this paper to evaluate the different Sodar approaches and methods for the determination of the atmospheric mixing height against direct measurements. To achieve this objective a specific experiment was designed and performed incorporating, a research home made Sodar, a tethered balloon and a radiosonde facility as well as a conventional ground based meteorological station. The obtained data were statistically treated and analyzed to high-light the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods during different meteorological conditions. The results indicate that all three manual methods produce reasonable estimates during convective conditions, while for the stable cases the acceptable techniques are reduced to two. For the automated approach however, the two methods produced quite acceptable estimates during convective conditions, while for the stable cases none was found suitable for use.