Spaceborne Doppler Radar Measurements of Rainfall: Correction of Errors Induced by Pointing Uncertainties

In this paper a sea surface radar echo spectral analysis technique to correct for the rainfall velocity error caused by radar-pointing uncertainty is presented. The correction procedure is quite straightforward when the radar is observing a homogeneous rainfall field. When nonuniform beam filling (N...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology 2005-11, Vol.22 (11), p.1676-1690
Main Authors: Tanelli, S, Im, E, Kobayashi, S, Mascelloni, R, Facheris, L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antennas
Computer simulation
Doppler effect
Doppler radar
Estimates
Marine
Mathematical models
Meteorology
Monte Carlo methods
Monte Carlo simulation
Precipitation
Radar
Rainfall
Rainfall measurement
Spectral analysis
Uncertainty
Weather
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Summary:In this paper a sea surface radar echo spectral analysis technique to correct for the rainfall velocity error caused by radar-pointing uncertainty is presented. The correction procedure is quite straightforward when the radar is observing a homogeneous rainfall field. When nonuniform beam filling (NUBF) occurs and attenuating frequencies are used, however, additional steps are necessary in order to correctly estimate the antenna-pointing direction. This new technique relies on the application of the combined frequency-time (CFT) algorithm to correct for uneven attenuation effects on the observed sea surface Doppler spectrum. The performance of this correction technique was evaluated by a Monte Carlo simulation of the Doppler precipitation radar backscatter from high-resolution 3D rain fields (either generated by a cloud resolving numerical model or retrieved from airborne radar measurements). The results show that the antenna-pointing-induced error can, indeed, be reduced by the proposed technique in order to achieve 1 m s-1 accuracy on rainfall vertical velocity estimates.
ISSN:0739-0572
1520-0426
DOI:10.1175/JTECH1797.1