Brian Jackson edited However_single_sensor_barometer_surveys__.tex  over 8 years ago

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However, single-sensor barometer surveys also suffer from important biases. Foremost among these biases is the fact that a pressure dip does not necessarily correspond to a dust-lofting vortex. Indeed, recent studies \citep{2014DPS....4630006S} suggest pressure dips are often unaccompanied by lofted dust, likely because the attendant wind velocities are not sufficient to lift dust. The problem of identifying dustless vortices can be mitigated is if  barometers are deployed alongside solar cells, which can register obscuration by dust, and such sensor pairs have recently been deployed in terrestrial studies \cite{Lorenz_2015}. However, such an arrangement is not fool-proof since a devil can easily pass by the sensors on the anti-sunward side and not register an obscuration signature. Another key bias confronted by single-barometer surveys is the ``miss distance'' effect: a fixed barometric sensor is more likely to have a more distant than closer encounter with a dust devil. Since the pressure perturbation associated with a devil falls off with distance, the deepest point in the observed pressure profile will almost always be less than the actual pressure well at the devil's center. The observed shape of the profile will be distorted as well. These miss distance biases are intrinsic to the detection methods, and additional biases can influence the inferred statistical properties. For instance, noise in the pressure time series from a barometer may make more difficult detection of a dust devils with smaller pressure perturbations, depending on the exact detection scheme.