THE NERC MST RADAR FACILITY AT ABERYSTWYTH
The Met Office took an interest in wind-profile data from the NERC
MST Radar since the early years of the Facility. They purchased 4 of
their own boundary-layer wind-profilers (2 operating at 915 MHz and 2
at 1290 MHz), from Radian, in the late 1990's. One of these (a 915 MHz
instrument) was operated at the NERC MST Radar site between 17th
November 1999 and 11th March 2002; it has now been relocated to South
Uist. These instrument make observations in two interlaced modes; the
low mode covers the approximate altitude range 0.1 - 2.0 km at 0.1 km
intervals, and the high mode covers the approximate altitude range 0.2
- 8.0 km at 0.2 km intervals. The useful altitude coverage varies with
atmospheric conditions and only extends significantly above 2 km when
precipitation is present. Although the cycle time for observations is
of the order of a few minutes, as for the NERC MST Radar, the data
used by the Met Office represent "consensus averages" over 30
minutes.
The data from all 4 of the Met Office's boundary-layer wind-profilers
are now available through a new dataset on the British Atmospheric Data
Centre (BADC). The data from the instrument which was operated at
Capel Dewi are additionally available through the MST Radar Facility
dataset.
The new 1290 MHz UFAM (Universities' Facility for Atmospheric
Measurement) boundary-layer wind-profiler arrived at the NERC MST
Radar site in July 2002 and has been operated there in-between
campaigns.