Radar Wind Profiler for Cloud Forecasting at BNL

15 July 2013 - 6 August 2015

Lead Scientist: Michael Jensen

Observatory: osc, osc

In support of recent activities funded by the DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to produce short-term cloud forecasts, the ARM Mobile Facility 1 915 MHz Radar Wind Profiler will be deployed at BNL while it is not a part of the international deployment to Brazil for GOAmazon. The RWP is being deployed on the BNL campus along with an existing suite of instrumentation that includes an array of 50 broadband pyranometers, 3 total sky imagers, a microwave radiometer, multi-filter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR), ARM Parsivel disdrometers and a Cimel sun photometer (CSPHOT). This suite of instrumentation is adjacent to a 37 MW solar array on the grounds of BNL.

In cases of precipitating cloud systems (particularly in winter) the RWP will be switched to a vertically pointing mode in order to conduct studies of storm dynamics (updrafts/downdrafts) and precipitation microphysics following on efforts from previous RWP IOPs at the SGP.

In addition to the complementary instrumentation deployed by BNL, additional complementary observations are also available from the NWS Office at Upton (BNL campus) including regular radiosonde launches and WSR-88D radar observations.

This campaign will 1) provide profiles of the horizontal wind to be used to test and validate short-term cloud advection forecasts for solar energy applications; 2) provide vertical profiling capabilities for the study of dynamics and hydrometeors in winter storms.

Co-Investigators

Mary Jane Bartholomew
Scott Giangrande
Dong Huang

Timeline

2016

Jensen MP, SE Giangrande, and MJ Bartholomew. 2016. Radar Wind Profiler for Cloud Forecasting at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Field Campaign Report. Ed. by Robert Stafford, DOE ARM Climate Research Facility. DOE/SC-ARM-16-025. 10.2172/1253785.

Jensen M, MJ Bartholomew, and S Giangrande. 2016. 915-MHz Wind Profiler for Cloud Forecasting at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Ed. by Robert Stafford, DOE ARM Climate Research Facility. DOE/SC-ARM-15-024. 10.2172/1242819.


View All Related Publications

Campaign Data Sets

IOP Participant Data Source Name Final Data
Mary Jane Bartholomew Radar Wind Profiler Order Data