Sonic anemometry and thermometry: theoretical basis and data-processing software

Abstract The use of fast and precise anemological and temperature data has always been considered promising particularly in the fields of Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) dynamics, air pollution monitoring and agrometeorology experimental study. To date, this desire can be satisfied at least in part by industrial-strength implementations of sonic anemometers at a reasonable cost. The processing of sonic anemometer data is not suitable for paper-and-pencil methods; in addition, the few existing software packages are often not available to the user community and are tied to nonstandard platforms. This has curbed the diffusion of the sonic anemometer more than its past high cost, which has now been greatly reduced. In this work, the authors list methods for extracting physically relevant information from the sonic anemometer measurements, and present software implementation of this methodology that permits obtaining real-time information from the sonic anemometer.