How Much Attenuation Extinguishes mm-Wave Vertically Pointing Radar Return Signals?
Abstract
Vertically pointing radars (VPRs) operating at millimeter wavelengths measure the power return from raindrops enabling precipitation retrievals as a function of height. However, as the rain rate increases, there are combinations of rain rate and rain path length that produce sufficient attenuation to prevent the radar from detecting raindrops all the way through rain shafts. This study explores the question: Which rain rate and path length combinations completely extinguish radar return signals for VPRs operating between 3 and 200 GHz? An important step in these simulations is converting attenuated radar reflectivity factor into radar received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in order to determine the range where the SNR drops below the receiver detection threshold. Configuring the simulations to mimic a U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Mission (ARM) W-band (95 GHz) radar deployed in Brazil, the simulation results indicate that a W-band radar could observe raindrops above 3.5 km only when the rain rate was less than approximately 4 mm h-1. The deployed W-band radar measurements confirm the simulation results with maximum observed heights ranging between 3 and 4.5 km when a surface disdrometer measured 4 mm h-1 rain rate (based on 25-to-75 percentiles from over 25,000 W-band radar profiles). Inmore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Data Center; Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
- Contributing Org.:
- PNNL; BNL; ANL; ORNL
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1856805
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1963095
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0021345
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Remote Sensing
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 14; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 2072-4292
- Publisher:
- MDPI
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; T-matrix particle scattering; raindrop backscattering cross-section; extinction cross-section; raindrop size distribution; attenuation; specific attenuation; T-matrix particle scattering, raindrop backscattering cross-section, extinction cross-section, raindrop size distribution, attenuation, specific attenuation
Citation Formats
Williams, Christopher R. How Much Attenuation Extinguishes mm-Wave Vertically Pointing Radar Return Signals?. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.3390/rs14061305.
Williams, Christopher R. How Much Attenuation Extinguishes mm-Wave Vertically Pointing Radar Return Signals?. United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14061305
Williams, Christopher R. Tue .
"How Much Attenuation Extinguishes mm-Wave Vertically Pointing Radar Return Signals?". United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14061305. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1856805.
@article{osti_1856805,
title = {How Much Attenuation Extinguishes mm-Wave Vertically Pointing Radar Return Signals?},
author = {Williams, Christopher R.},
abstractNote = {Vertically pointing radars (VPRs) operating at millimeter wavelengths measure the power return from raindrops enabling precipitation retrievals as a function of height. However, as the rain rate increases, there are combinations of rain rate and rain path length that produce sufficient attenuation to prevent the radar from detecting raindrops all the way through rain shafts. This study explores the question: Which rain rate and path length combinations completely extinguish radar return signals for VPRs operating between 3 and 200 GHz? An important step in these simulations is converting attenuated radar reflectivity factor into radar received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in order to determine the range where the SNR drops below the receiver detection threshold. Configuring the simulations to mimic a U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Mission (ARM) W-band (95 GHz) radar deployed in Brazil, the simulation results indicate that a W-band radar could observe raindrops above 3.5 km only when the rain rate was less than approximately 4 mm h-1. The deployed W-band radar measurements confirm the simulation results with maximum observed heights ranging between 3 and 4.5 km when a surface disdrometer measured 4 mm h-1 rain rate (based on 25-to-75 percentiles from over 25,000 W-band radar profiles). In summary, this study contributes to our understanding of how rain and atmospheric gas attenuation impacts the performance of millimeter-wave VPRs and will help with the design and configuration of multi-frequency VPRs deployed in future field campaigns.},
doi = {10.3390/rs14061305},
journal = {Remote Sensing},
number = 6,
volume = 14,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Mar 08 00:00:00 EST 2022},
month = {Tue Mar 08 00:00:00 EST 2022}
}
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