High-resolution ground layer turbulence from inside the CFHT dome using a lunar scintillometer

Overcoming the Boundary Layer Turbulence at Dome C: Ground-Layer Adaptive Optics versus Tower

The unique atmospheric conditions present at sites such as Dome C on the Antarctic plateau are very favorable for high spatial resolution astronomy. At Dome C, the majority of the optical turbulence is confined to a 30 to 40 m thick stable boundary layer that results from the strong temperature inversion created by the heat exchange between the air and the ice-covered ground. To fully realize t...

Turbulence Profiling Using a Scanning Scintillometer

Measurement of grassland evaporation using a surface-layer scintillometer

A dual-beam surface-layer scintillometer (SLS) was used to estimate sensible heat flux (H) every 2 min for a path length of either 50 or 101 m, for more than 30 months in a mesic grassland in eastern South Africa. The SLS method relies on Monin-Obukhov similarity theory, the correlation between the laser beam signal amplitude variances and the covariance of the logarithm of the beam signal ampl...

Sampling the Ground Layer of the Atmosphere at Dome C using fast Sonic-anemometers

The ground layer turbulence at Dome C is the cause for more than 90% of the total turbulence column. While the height of this layer has been currently measured to be approximately 30m, no long term statistics is available from this part of the atmosphere. In order to plan the construction of future telescope at this site temperature site, temperature, wind speed and turbulence measurements are ...

A robotic instrument for measuring high altitude atmospheric turbulence from Dome C, Antarctica

To properly characterize the atmospheric properties of a site for a future large telescope or interferometer, it is insufficient to measure quantities, such as the full-width at half-maximum of a stellar image, that have been integrated over the entire atmosphere. A knowledge of the turbulence distribution as a function of height is necessary, since this affects the ease and degree to which ada...