Simplified optical path-averaged rain gauge
| Autor: | K. B. Earnshaw, R. S. Lawrence, Ting-I. Wang |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2010 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
Scintillation Rain gauge business.industry Materials Science (miscellaneous) Measure (physics) Terrain Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Collimated light Ptychography Optics Optical path Business and International Management business Physics::Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics Beam (structure) |
| Zdroj: | Applied optics. 17(3) |
| ISSN: | 1559-128X |
| Popis: | It has previously been shown that the scintillations produced by raindrops falling through a collimated laser beam can be used to measure the drop-size distribution and the rainfall rate, both averaged over the path. We now present a theoretical analysis, verified by observation, showing that the variance of the scintillations detected by a line-detector measured at frequencies near 1 kHz is closely related to rain rate and is nearly independent of drop-size distribution. If only rain rate is desired, the variance type of optical rain gauge has several advantages over the earlier model. It could use a diverging beam, thus eliminating the practical difficulties of maintaining adjustment and pointing of a collimated beam. Furthermore, it is less sensitive to the presence of updrafts and downdrafts along the beam and can thus be used over rough terrain. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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