Application of a spectral correction method for measurements of covariances with fast-response sensors in the atmospheric boundary layer up to a height of 130 m and testing of the corrections

Measurement of meteorological quantities with fast-response sensors by means of the eddycorrelation technique allows calculation of turbulent transport without too severe demands with regard to stationarity and homogeneity. However, the measurement system causes frequency-dependent errors due to measuring height, averaging interval, sampling rate and mean wind speed. A correction method (Moore, 1986) was applied to measurements taken on a 130 m tower located at the German North Sea coast. The errors for 10-min averages, obtained at a height of 10 m were between 20 and 30%, mainly caused by the inertia of the sensors, increasing to between 30 and 60% at 130 m height due to a loss of low-frequency parts of the spectra because of the averaging interval. The corrections to the obtained data were validated by comparing the cospectra calculated from the data with the spectra used for the computation of the correction factors.