5.1 Sodars have found wide applications for the remote measurement of wind and turbulence profiles in the atmosphere, particularly in the gap between meteorological towers and the lower range gates of wind profiling radars. The sodar’s far field acoustic power is also used for refractive index calculations and to estimate atmospheric stability, heat flux, and mixed layer depth (1-5).3 Sodars are useful for these purposes because of strong interaction between sound waves and the atmosphere’s thermal and velocity micro-structure that produce acoustic returns with substantial signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The returned echoes are Doppler-shifted in frequency. This frequency shift, proportional to the radial velocity of the scattering surface, provides the basis for wind measurement. Advantages offered by sodar wind sounding technology include reasonably low procurement, operating, and maintenance costs, no emissions of eye-damaging light beams or electromagnetic radiation requiring frequency clearances, and adjustable frequencies and pulse lengths that can be used to optimize data quality at desired ranges and range resolutions. When properly sited and used with adequate sampling methods, sodars can provide continuous wind and turbulence profile information at height ranges from a few tens of meters to over a kilometre for typical averaging periods of 1 to 60 minutes.

1.1 This guide describes the application of acoustic remote sensing for measuring atmospheric wind and turbulence profiles. It includes a summary of the fundamentals of atmospheric sound detection and ranging (sodar), a description of the methodology and equipment used for sodar applications, factors to consider during site selection and equipment installation, and recommended procedures for acquiring valid and relevant data.

1.2 This guide applies principally to pulsed monostatic sodar techniques as applied to wind and turbulence measurement in the open atmosphere, although many of the definitions and principles are also applicable to bistatic configurations. This guide is not directly applicable to radio-acoustic sounding systems (RASS), or tomographic methods.

1.3 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard. No other units of measurement are included in this guide.