The goal of this thesis is related to atmospheric temperature measurements using in situ techniques in tandem with a direct numerical simulation to better understand the zenith angle dependence of VHF (30-300 MHz) radar backscatter from the atmosphere. We begin our study with a high-resolution balloon-borne in situ temperature measurement made over Wichita, KS, in 1995. Very steep vertical temperature gradients were found at the edges of vertical potential steps, regions of near zero vertical potential temperature gradient. We use wavelet analysis to isolate the organized components of the signal and, after subtraction from the original signal, the residual signal is found to have the characteristics of isotropic turbulence. This confirms our hypothesis that the measured temperature profile is a superposition of coherent structures and a background isotropic turbulence. From a radar pers...