Temperature retrieval with VHF radar using combined techniques

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the practical contribution of a VHF radar to high time resolution automatic temperature profiling both for research and operational applications in the frame of an integrated system of ground-based remote-sensing instruments. Based on the most prominent results already mentioned about this instrumentation, different techniques, related to the temperature data retrieval, are experimentally tested and documented using the INSU/Meteo 45 MHz wind profiler operating at CNRM/Toulouse or during cooperative campaigns. In parallel to the self-sufficient Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS), other approaches, using the Brunt-Vaisala frequency measurements, allow an extension of height coverage up to the higher troposphere and the tropopause. As only temperature gradients can be measured by this way, complementary data from other instruments are desirable. This makes it particularly fitted to an integrated remote-sensing system operating from the ground combining wind profilers with GPS, radiometers, lidar ceilometers and sodars.