HF and lidar measurements of air sea interaction in the coastal zone

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to show the effectiveness of combined air-sea interaction observations on large spatial and temporal scales and with high resolution in both time and space. The National Research Council (1992) recommends in their coastal meteorological review, "...the use of recently developed remote sensors to obtain detailed four-dimensional data sets along with the upgrading of buoy and surface station networks to obtain quality, long duration data sets describing coastal regions... ." This NRC recommendation is the authors' long term goal in the research described. To illustrate their approach they report selected long term (3 years) observations of air-sea interaction phenomena by an HF (decameter wavelength) ground wave radar situated at Granite Canyon on the California coast, south of Monterey as well as lidar observations of surface wind fields observed at Atlanta, Georgia. They show how a new HF radar system, now under construction, will be combined with microwave radar, atmospheric lidar, surface buoy and other remote sensing observations to investigate air-sea interaction on scale sizes ranging from hundreds of meters to many tells of kilometers. The key to this combined measurements project is to produce the four-dimensional data sets, recommended above, at low cost through the use of automated stations.<>