This instrument may appear useful in commercial micro-meteorological applications that require the measurement of sensible heat, water vapor and trace gas fluxes, as they relate to air quality. It could also be mounted on small platforms that could form a swarm of UAVs and monitor the dispersion of pollutants or atmospheric contamination generated by terrorist activities. It is anticipated that the US DoD or the Department of Homeland Security may be interested in such applications. The attractive features of this product are that it will include all components in a tightly packaged probe body half the size of a base ball bat, making it a stand alone, off-the-shelf item, at an affordable price, in the range of $6,000 to 20,000. This product will be readily available for mounting on micrometeorological towers or on any flying platform to measure atmospheric turbulence and gas contents as part of environmental research. Such measurements can improve our understanding of the high-wind boundary layer and the exchange of heat, moisture and momentum across the oceanic or terrestrial surface. This equipment may prove valuable in disclosing the fluxes of man-made or natural species like CO2, which are key elements of micro-meteorology. A variation of this probe could be flown into developing tropical storms or hurricanes, to measure wind turbulence, the size and number density of droplets, and the fluxes of momentum, humidity and other thermodynamic quantities.
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