Estimate of Precipitation from the Dual-Beam Airborne Radars in TOGA COARE. Part 1: The K–Z Relationships Derived from Stereo and Quad-Beam Analysis

Abstract

The recent development of dual-beam airborne Doppler weather radar offers the possibility to perform high-resolution observations of the three-dimensional air motion and precipitation fields associated with severe weather systems. However, the limited size of the onboard antennas imposes the use of high radar frequencies (e.g., X band) in order to achieve satisfactory beam resolutions. Therefore, the sampled radar reflectivity is attenuated when intercepting intense rain cells. This paper aims at developing algorithms for correcting the observed radar reflectivity for attenuation that fully exploit the dual-beam sampling strategy and the multiple aircraft operations conducted in Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean?Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE). Its specific contribution is twofold. Algorithm development. On the one hand, the former stereoradar analysis helps to retrieve independently the?true? (nonattenuated) radar reflectivity Z and specific attenuation K when using two radar beams from one aircraft. The algorithm is reformulated in Cartesian coordinates, which greatly improves its flexibility. And on the other hand, a new approach is developed, the quad-beam analysis, which is particularly powerful when processing the data of a two dual-beam aircraft operation focused on the same rain cells. Data analysis. An application of the stereoradar and quad-beam analysis to a TOGA COARE weather system is presented. The corrected Z and K fields are cross validated using different algorithms or datasets for the same event. The radar derived K?Z relationships are also compared with that deduced from in situ microphysical probes sampling using a scattering model. The full three-dimensional description of the Z and K fields is then used to appreciate to what extent the observed heavy rain reached the ?equilibrium? described by previous authors in response to droplet coalescence and breakup.