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High‐resolution wind speed measurements using actively heated fiber optics
Author(s) -
Sayde Chadi,
Thomas Christoph K.,
Wagner James,
Selker John
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl066729
Subject(s) - anemometer , wind speed , turbulence , temperature measurement , transect , image resolution , remote sensing , optics , meteorology , measure (data warehouse) , environmental science , temporal resolution , physics , geology , computer science , oceanography , quantum mechanics , database
We present a novel technique to simultaneously measure wind speed ( U ) at thousands of locations continuously in time based on measurement of velocity‐dependent heat transfer from a heated surface. Measuring temperature differences between paired passive and actively heated fiber‐optic (AHFO) cables with a distributed temperature sensing system allowed estimation of U at over 2000 sections along the 230 m transect (resolution of 0.375 m and 5.5 s). The underlying concept is similar to that of a hot wire anemometer extended in space. The correlation coefficient between U measured by two colocated sonic anemometers and the AHFO were 0.91 during the day and 0.87 at night. The combination of classical passive and novel AHFO provides unprecedented dynamic observations of both air temperature and wind speed spanning 4 orders of magnitude in spatial scale (0.1–1000 m) while resolving individual turbulent motions, opening new opportunities for testing basic theories for near‐surface geophysical flows.