Radar parameters including radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, and Doppler spectrum width were obtained from Doppler spectrum moments. The Doppler spectrum moment is the convolution of both the particle spectrum and the mean air vertical motion. Unlike strong precipitation, the motion of particles in cirrus clouds is quite close to the air motion around them. In this study, a method of Doppler moments was developed and used to retrieve cirrus cloud microphysical properties such as the mean air vertical velocity, mass-weighted diameter, effective particle size, and ice content. Ice content values were retrieved using both the Doppler spectrum method and classic Z-IWC (radar reflectivity-ice water content) relationships; however, the former is a more reasonable method.
The errors in radar quantitative precipitation estimations consist not only of systematic biases caused by random noises but also spatially nonuniform biases in radar rainfall at individual rain-gauge stations. In this study, a real-time adjustment to the radar reflectivity rainfall rates (Z R) relationship scheme and the gauge-corrected, radar-based, estimation scheme with inverse distance weighting interpolation was devel- oped. Based on the characteristics of the two schemes, the two-step correction technique of radar quantitative precipitation estimation is proposed. To minimize the errors between radar quantitative precipitation es- timations and rain gauge observations, a real-time adjustment to the Z R relationship scheme is used to remove systematic bias on the time-domain. The gauge-corrected, radar-based, estimation scheme is then used to eliminate non-uniform errors in space. Based on radar data and rain gauge observations near the Huaihe River, the two-step correction technique was evaluated using two heavy-precipitation events. The results show that the proposed scheme improved not only in the underestimation of rainfall but also reduced the root-mean-square error and the mean relative error of radar-rain gauge pairs.
A mobile C-band dual polarimetric weather radar J type (PCDJ), which adopts simultaneous transmission and simultaneous reception (STSR) of horizontally and vertically polarized signals, was first developed in China in 2008. It was deployed in the radar observation plan in the South China Heavy Rainfall Experiment (SCHeREX) in the summer of 2008 and 2009, as well as in Tropical Western Pacific Ocean Observation Experiments and Research on the Predictability of High Impact Weather Events from 2008 to 2010 in China (TWPOR). Using the observation data collected in these experiments, the radar systematic error and its sources were analyzed in depth. Meanwhile an algorithm that can smooth differential propagation phase (~Dp) for estimating the high-resolution specific differential phase (KDP) was developed. After attenuation correction of reflectivity in horizontal polarization (ZH) and differential reflectivity (ZDR) of PCDJ radar by means of KDP, the data quality was improved significantly. Using quality-controlled radar data, quantitative rainfall estimation was performed, and the resutls were compared with rain-gauge measurements. A synthetic ZH /KDp-based method was analyzed. The results the traditional ZH-based method when the rain suggest that the synthetic method has the advantage over rate is 〉5 mm h^-1. The more intensive the rain rates, the higher accuracy of the estimation.