Mesoscale air quality studies with meteorological remote sensing systems

Remote sensors of various types have contributed increasingly over the past decade to studies of meteorological processes affecting air quality over mesoscale domains. Doppler sodars and lidars as well as newly emerging 915-MHz radar wind profiler technology are shown to describe well mean wind and temperature profiles. A number of air quality field research programmes have now deployed these instruments in various combinations in mesoscale experiments. Three studies provide examples for discussion of mean wind and temperature profiles. Unfortunately, many remote sensing instruments have not realized their full potential for measurement of turbulent momentum and heat fluxes as well as mixed-layer depth. A simple four-beam Doppler acoustic system provides a preliminary example of such potential applications. Furthermore, pattern-recognition methods, although subjective in nature, can be applied to time-height cross sections of reflectivity with the data of use in the interpretation of dispersion process in the atmoshpheric boundary layer