2024 - 2025
Djordje Romanic
Alessio Ricci
Massimiliano Burlando
Yaohong Ren
Maria Pia Repetto
2024 - 2025
Costal Urban-BOundary Layer Dynamics
ERIES-CU-BOLD
Dataset Description
This dataset contains continuous Doppler-wind lidar measurements of the coastal urban boundary layer (CUBL) and the adjacent marine atmospheric boundary layer over the city and Port of Genoa, Italy, acquired between 3 July and 27 August 2025 in the framework of the ERIES Transnational Access project ERIES-CU-BOLD (Coastal Urban-BOundary Layer Dynamics). The available data is nearly continuous over the campaign, except for a gap with no lidar files from 15 to 20 August 2025. The adjacent days, 14 and 21 August are present but contain fewer files than a typical full observation day. Measurements were collected with a Vaisala WindCube 400S (2018 version) pulsed scanning Doppler lidar (instrument identifier WLS400s-118) operated by the University of Genoa from a quay of the Port of Genoa (44.4175°N, 8.7768°E; 5 m above mean sea level). Three predefined scan families were operated cyclically: six Range-Height Indicator (RHI) scans at azimuths 65°, 75°, 85°, 95°, 105°, and 115° (0–15° elevation, 0.5° resolution); five Plan Position Indicator (PPI) scans across azimuths 65°–115° at fixed elevations 4°, 6°, 8°, 10°, and 15°; and one Doppler Beam Swinging (DBS) profile (five beams at azimuths 0°, V, 180°, 270°, 90°, elevations 75°/90°). RHI and PPI scans cover 300–12,150 m at 75 m gate spacing; DBS profiles cover 150–3,330 m at 10 m gate spacing.
The campaign comprises two sub-campaigns — T1 (3–27 July 2025; RHI + PPI only) and T2 (27 July – 27 August 2025; RHI + PPI + DBS) — yielding more than 92,000 CF/Radial 2.0 NetCDF-4 files packaged in two monthly ZIP archives. The dataset supports research on CUBL structure, urban heat-island circulation, sea- and land-breeze regimes, internal boundary layer development over coastal cities, low-level jets, and turbulence statistics for wind-engineering applications, and provides a benchmark for validating meso- and micro-scale numerical simulations of the Genoa metropolitan area.
Specimens
1. Vaisala WindCube 400S - WLS400s-118
2
The specimen for this project is the measurement instrument itself: a Vaisala WindCube 400S (2018 version) long-range pulsed scanning Doppler lidar (serial WLS400s-118), operated by the University of Genoa on a quay in the Port of Genoa, 5 m above mean sea level. It is a heterodyne pulsed lidar (1.54 µm, eye-safety class 1M) that measures the line-of-sight (radial) Doppler velocity and the Carrier-to-Noise Ratio of the backscattered signal in successive range gates along the beam, out to ~12 km. The scanning head is fully steerable in azimuth (0–360°) and elevation (0–90°), which allows three complementary scan geometries:
1. RHI (Range-Height Indicator): the beam sweeps in elevation at a fixed azimuth, producing a vertical cross-section (curtain) of the wind along one direction — used here to image the vertical structure of the boundary layer from the urban core out over the sea.
2. PPI (Plan Position Indicator): the beam sweeps in azimuth at a fixed elevation, producing a quasi-horizontal conical cross-section — used to map the spatial wind field over the city and adjacent sea at several heights.
3. DBS (Doppler Beam Swinging): the beam steps through a small set of fixed off-zenith and vertical pointings, and the radial velocities are combined to retrieve the full three-dimensional wind vector (u,v,w), horizontal wind speed, and wind direction as vertical profiles above the instrument.
1. Sub-campagn T1 (3–27 July 2025)
During T1 the lidar ran a continuous, repeating cycle of 6 RHI + 5 PPI scans (no DBS). Each full cycle lasted about 7 minutes, giving near-continuous coverage of the vertical and quasi-horizontal wind field across the urban–coastal–marine transition of Genoa throughout the month.
Scanning strategy.
• 6 RHI scans at azimuths 65°, 75°, 85°, 95°, 105°, 115° (true north; 10° azimuthal step), each sweeping elevation 0°→15° at 0.5° angular resolution; ~25–30 s per scan. Range 300–12,150 m, 159 gates, 75 m gate-to-gate spacing.
• 5 PPI scans sweeping azimuth 65°→115° at 0.5° resolution, at fixed elevations 4°, 6°, 8°, 10°, 15°; ~50 s per scan. Same range/gate configuration as the RHIs.
• Ray accumulation time 0.5 s; the azimuth sector is oriented to capture the urban core, the coastline, and the open sea along each line of sight, as well as the dominant land-/sea-breeze axes.
Instrumentation
Vaisala WindCube 400S - WLS400s-118
2. Sub-campaign T2 (27 July – 27 August 2025)
T2 repeated the full T1 sequence and added one DBS profile after each 6 RHI + 5 PPI block, so each complete cycle lasted about 14 minutes. This period includes the 15-20 August data gap described above. The DBS addition provides direct three-dimensional wind profiles (u, v, w) above the lidar to complement the radial-velocity curtains and cones, enabling turbulence and boundary-layer-height analysis.
Scanning strategy.
• RHI and PPI: identical to T1 (6 RHI at azimuths 65°–115°, elevation 0°–15°; 5 PPI across azimuth 65°–115° at elevations 4°/6°/8°/10°/15°).
• 1 DBS scan: a 5-beam cycle in the order azimuth 0° (N), V (vertical/zenith), 180° (S), 270° (W), 90° (E), with elevations 75°, 90°, 75°, 75°, 75°; range 150–3,330 m, 319 gates, 10 m gate-to-gate spacing; full DBS cycle ~7 minutes.
Instrumentation
Vaisala WindCube 400S - WLS400s-118
Project Metadata
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
CC BY 4.0
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