There is a pressing need for good wind-speed measurements at greater and greater heights to assess the availability of the resource in terms of power production and to identify any frequently occurring atmospheric structural characteristics that may create turbulence that impacts the operational reliability and lifetime of wind turbines and their components. In this paper, we summarize the results of a short study that compares the relative accuracies of wind speeds derived from a high-resolution pulsed Doppler LIDAR operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a midrange Doppler SODAR with wind speeds measured by four levels of tower-based sonic anemometry up to a height of 116 m. The level of accuracy to which the intercomparisons with the LIDAR and SODAR could be compared with the sonic anemometers is limited by the degree of local flow distortion as a result of the presence of the tower and the nature of obstructions locally mounted near each anemometer. We performed an optimized intercomparison between the LIDAR and sonic anemometers that agrees quite well with an earlier and similar study that used a predecessor of the current NOAA LIDAR. Finally, we summarize the results of intercomparing a relatively long-term and generally noncontiguous record of horizontal wind speeds measured simultaneously by the SODAR and the four sonic anemometers.
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