Development and verification of experimental databases for pancake structures in atmospheric flows

摘要

The performance of Airborne Lasers is sensitive to the 3D, nonstationary, intermittent, anisotropic structure of atmospheric turbulence. The upper (stratospheric) layers are dominated by the background stable stratification, as a result of which the turbulence tend to be characterized by thin layers of high refractive index variations known as `pancakes'. In this paper we survey theoretical results and experimental measurements of turbulence spectra and correlations for pancakes in rotating stratified environments. Anisotropic turbulence models developed are benchmarked against both laboratory experimental data bases as well as field data to be gathered in the balloon and the EGRETT campaign of measurements.