The Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) 50 MHz Radar Wind Profiler and Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) Vertical Profiles is one of various data sets provided for the Southern Great Plains 1997 (SGP97) project. This data set contains vertical profiles of virtual temperature and wind speed and direction every hour taken at the Central Facility. This data set covers the period from 1 June through 31 July 1997. The SGP97 domain is approximately 97W to 99W longitude and 34.5N to 37N latitude. These data are in their original NetCDF format. The 50-MHz Radar Wind Profiler/RASS (RWP50) measures wind profiles from (nominally) 2 to 12 km and virtual temperature profiles from 2 to 4 km. It operates by transmitting electromagnetic energy into the atmosphere and measuring the strength and frequency of backscattered energy. Virtual temperatures are recovered by transmitting an acoustic signal vertically and measuring the electromagnetic energy scattered from the acoustic wavefront. The propagation speed of the acoustic wave is proportional to the square root of the virtual temperature. The primary quantities measured with the system are the intensity and Doppler frequency of backscattered radiation. The wind speed is determined from the Doppler frequency of energy scattered from refractive index fluctuations (caused primarily by temperature fluctuations) embedded within the atmosphere; the virtual temperature is determined from the Doppler frequency of microwave energy scattered from acoustic energy propagating through the atmosphere. No additional quality control was performed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS).
