Lower atmospheric wind profiler at Gadanki, tropical India: initial results

Abstract

For the first time at Gadanki, India, an L-band (1357.5 MHz) Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiler (LAWP) has been in operation since August 1997. Gadanki-LAWP provides continuous high-resolution wind measurements in the first few kilometers of the atmosphere and offers excellent opportunity to diagnose convective planetary boundary layer and precipitating cloud systems. To check the reliability winds observed with the Gadanki-LAWP system are compared with the Indian MST radar measurements. Though the echo mechanism is different, the comparison of wind speed shows fairly good agreement. Gadanki-LAWP can provide continuous convective atmospheric boundary layer (CBL) height measurements with very good time resolution (5 minutes or less), allowing for detailed understanding of the growth and fluctuations of the CBL. In this paper we also examine the application of LAWP to the diagnosis and classification of precipitating cloud systems at Gadanki.