Humidity contribution to Cn2 over a 600m pathlength in a tropical marine environment

Mark P. J. L. Chang; Carlos O. Font; Charmaine Gilbreath; Eun Oh

doi:10.1117/12.717948

12 February 2007 Humidity contribution to C²_n over a 600m pathlength in a tropical marine environment

Mark P. J. L. Chang, Carlos O. Font, Charmaine Gilbreath, Eun Oh

Proceedings Volume 6457, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XIX and Atmospheric Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves; 64570W (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.717948
Event: Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering, 2007, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

We present new optical turbulence structure parameter measurements, C²_n, over sea water between La Parguera and Magueyes Island (17.6N 67W) on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico. The 600 meter horizontal paths were located approximately 1.5 m and 10 m above sea level. No data of this type has ever been made available in the literature. Based on the data, we show that the C²_n measurements are about 7 times less compared to equivalent land data. This strong evidence reinforces our previous argument^1-4 that humidity must be accounted for to better ascertain the near surface atmospheric turbulence effects, which current visible / near infrared C²_n bulk models fail to do. We also explore the generalised fractal dimension of this littoral data and compare it to our reference land data. We find cases that exhibit monofractal characteristics, that is to say, the effect of rising temperatures during the daylight hours upon turbulence are counterbalanced by humidity, leading to a single characteristic scale for the measurements. In other words, significant moisture changes in the measurement volume cancels optical turbulence increases due to temperature rises.

Citation Download Citation

Mark P. J. L. Chang, Carlos O. Font, Charmaine Gilbreath, and Eun Oh "Humidity contribution to C²_n over a 600m pathlength in a tropical marine environment", Proc. SPIE 6457, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XIX and Atmospheric Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves, 64570W (12 February 2007); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.717948

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