A study of optical turbulence measurements at 1 m above ground level over an arid desert terrain was conducted at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in the spring of 1992. The optical turbulence was characterized by the index of refraction structure function, C$-n$/$+2$/, measured directly with scintillometers. Following a side-by-side comparison of the scintillometers along essentially identical 1-km paths, the calibrated sensors were installed along a 3750-m path for this study. The path was segmented into four nearly equal subdivisions, each equipped with a scintillometer transmitter-receiver pair. This paper describes the terrain variation by segment and the local and synoptic weather conditions during the study, and summarizes the observations and correlations drawn from intercomparing the four simultaneously sampled scintillometer measurements acquired along the 3750-m path.
展开▼
