Meteorological Temperature Profiling

Kipp & Zonen (The Netherlands) is pleased to announce that the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency of Seattle has purchased two MTP 5-HE Meteorological Temperature Profilers. The decision was made following extensive testing and comparisons with existing RASS systems and a meteorological tower.
The evaluation results were presented at the EPA/NACAA National Air
Quality Conferences in Portland, Oregon, during the second week of April
and created a lot of interest at the Kipp & Zonen booth.
There are a number of applications in meteorological and environmental
sciences where it is desirable to measure the temperature of the atmosphere in the 1000–3000m closest to the ground, the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). As altitude increases the air temperature falls with a theoretical ‘Adiabatic Lapse Rate’ of approximately 6.5ºC per 1000m, but this rate is influenced by a number of factors.
Under Adiabatic conditions pollutant gases, aerosols and fine particulates tend to rise into the atmosphere and disperse. However, in the case of a temperature inversion there is a layer of air where the temperature rises, instead of falling, and the effect is to trap the pollutants close to the ground. This leads to poor air quality events that can last for many hours until the inversion breaks up.
By monitoring the atmospheric temperature profile in real-time it is possible to predict the development and break-up of inversions within a specific area and actions can be taken to minimise the environmental and health impacts.Many industries have processes which require the emission of gasses into the atmosphere and these should not take place when an inversion is present. Temperature profiles are an essential input for accurate plume and dispersion modelling.
The MTP 5 family of instruments from Kipp & Zonen are specifically designed to provide real-time ABL measurements with all-weather, unattended operation and automatic self-calibration. They require no specialist knowledge to install, maintain and operate or to analyse the data and are ideal for network use. MTP 5 uses a uniquely designed compact and ruggedmicrowave receiver which is highly sensitive to atmospheric ‘black-body’ thermal radiation at 5mm wavelength (60GHz frequency). MTP 5 emits no radiation and does not require any operating licences.
Atmospheric radiation is measured in angular steps from horizontal to vertical and the operating software processes the data into height and temperature information. The data is stored and profiles are displayed
graphically with 50m height resolution, typically every 5 minutes. The MTP 5-H measures up to 600m with accuracy of ±0.5ºC; the MTP 5-HE goes up to 1000m. These instruments are small and light and for increased safety outdoors and flexibility of power supply choice they operate from 12 VDC.
These features, together with the proven performance, make the Kipp & Zonen MTP 5 the temperature profiler of choice for the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.