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Potential for attenuation‐based estimations of rainfall rate from CloudSat
Author(s) -
Matrosov Sergey Y.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2006gl029161
Subject(s) - attenuation , remote sensing , radar , environmental science , correction for attenuation , reflectivity , consistency (knowledge bases) , weather radar , nadir , meteorology , geology , computer science , optics , satellite , physics , telecommunications , astronomy , artificial intelligence
Attenuation of radar signals in rain increases with frequency while the variability of non‐attenuated reflectivity of rainfall diminishes as resonance scattering effects become more pronounced at higher radar frequencies. At mm‐wavelength frequencies, attenuation often becomes the dominant factor responsible for apparent reflectivity changes in vertical. This study presents an attenuation‐based method to retrieve vertical profiles of rain rate from nadir‐pointing W‐band (94 GHz) radars. The quantitative assessments of retrieval errors are discussed, and an illustration of the retrievals using measurements from the spaceborne 94 GHz CloudSat radar is shown. As a consistency check, the spaceborne W‐band radar retrievals are compared with concurrent estimates from a ground‐based weather surveillance radar.