Observations of strong wind shear using pulse compression radar

Abstract

THE occurrence of layers of strong wind shear is interesting because of their relationship to turbulence and because of their effect on aircraft, rockets and missiles crossing them. The most extensive source of data on wind shear is from ascending balloon-borne targets but these provide individual profiles of uncertain representativeness and often lack vertical resolution. Measurements from aircraft provide more detailed data. Other sources of high resolution data being used increasingly are remote probing techniques capable of measuring the Doppler shift from windborne natural targets, such as, cloud or dust particles and inhomogeneities of temperature and humidity. Although most of these techniques have been developed for use at short range in the atmospheric boundary layer, microwave pulsed Doppler radar is one technique by which a ground-based installation can sometimes obtain wind measurements to quite high altitudes¹. Normally the spatial resolution of such radars is on the order of hundreds of metres. Here we report some observations of very strong shear made using a pulsed Doppler radar specially designed to achieve high spatial resolution.