Monitoring of Low-Level Wind Shear by Ground-based 3D Lidar for Increased Flight Safety, Protection of Human Lives and Health

Pavol Nechaj, Ladislav Gaál, Juraj Bartok, Olga Vorobyeva, Martin Gera, Miroslav Kelemen and Volodymyr Polishchuk
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Pavol Nechaj: MicroStep-MIS, Čavojského 1, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovak
Ladislav Gaál: MicroStep-MIS, Čavojského 1, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovak
Juraj Bartok: MicroStep-MIS, Čavojského 1, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovak
Olga Vorobyeva: MicroStep-MIS, Čavojského 1, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovak
Martin Gera: Department of Astronomy, Physics of the Earth, and Meteorology, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava 4, 842 48 Mlynská dolina, Slovak
Miroslav Kelemen: Faculty of Aeronautics, Technical University of Košice, Rampová 7, 041 21 Košice, Slovak
Volodymyr Polishchuk: Faculty of Information Technologies, Uzhhorod National University, Narodna Square, 3, 88000 Uzhhorod, Ukraine

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 22, 1-26

Abstract: Low-level wind shear, i.e., sudden changes in wind speed and/or wind direction up to altitudes of 1600 ft (500 m) above-ground is a hazardous meteorological phenomenon in aviation. It may radically change the aerodynamic circumstances of the flight, particularly during landing and take-off and consequently, it may threaten human lives and the health of passengers, people at the airport and its surrounding areas. The Bratislava Airport, the site of this case study, is one of the few airports worldwide and the first in Central Europe that is equipped with a Doppler lidar system, a perspective remote sensing tool for detecting low-level wind shear. The main objective of this paper was to assess the weather events collected over a period of one year with the occurrences of low-level wind shear situations, such as vertical discontinuities in the wind field, frontal passages and gust fronts to increase the level of flight safety and protect human lives and health. The lidar data were processed by a computer algorithm with the main focus on potential wind shear alerts and microburst alerts, guided by the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. In parallel, the selected weather events were analyzed by the nearby located meteorological radar to utilize the strengths of both approaches. Additionally, an evaluation of the lidar capability to scan dynamics of aerosol content above the airport is presented.

Keywords: flight safety; lidar; low-level wind shear; microburst; gust front; windborne aerosol particles; protection of lives; public health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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