The influence of antenna radome on weather radar calibration and its real-time assessment

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 676-689

  Gorgucci, E ^a   Bechini, R ^b,c   Baldini, L ^a   Cremonini, R ^b   Chandrasekar, V ^c,d  

^a CNR   (Italy)

^b ARPA PIEMONTE   (Italy)

^c Veterinary Dentistry and Oral Surgery   (Finland)

^d FINNISH METEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE   (Finland)

Author keywords

Data quality control; Microwave observations; Radars Radar observations; Remote sensing; Sensitivity studies; Surface observations

Indexed keywords

CALIBRATION; METEOROLOGICAL RADAR; MICROWAVE ANTENNAS; POLARIMETERS; QUALITY CONTROL; RADAR MEASUREMENT; RADOMES; RAIN; WETTING;

ANTENNA RADOMES; DATA QUALITY CONTROL; MICROWAVE OBSERVATIONS; RADAR CALIBRATION; RADARS/RADAR OBSERVATIONS; REAL-TIME ASSESSMENT; REMOTE-SENSING; SELF-CONSISTENCY; SENSITIVITY STUDIES; SURFACE OBSERVATION;

REMOTE SENSING;

ANTENNA; CALIBRATION; DATA QUALITY; EQUIPMENT; ERROR CORRECTION; MODEL TEST; MODEL VALIDATION; OBSERVATIONAL METHOD; QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS; RADAR; RAINFALL; REAL TIME; WEATHER STATION;

EID: 84878420078     PISSN: 07390572     EISSN: 15200426     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1175/jtech-d-12-00071.1     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Anderson, I., 1975: Measurements of 20-GHz transmission through a radome in rain. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., 23, 619-622.
2. Atlas, D., and C. W. Ulbrich, 1977: Path- and area-integrated rainfall measurement by microwave attenuation in the 1-3 cm band. J. Appl. Meteor., 16, 1322-1331.
3. Baldini, L., and E. Gorgucci, 2006: Identification of the melting layer through dual-polarization radar measurements at vertical incidence. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 23, 829-839.
4. Beard, K. V., and C. Chuang, 1987: A new model for the equilibrium shape of raindrops. J. Atmos. Sci., 44, 1509-1524.
5. Bechini, R., R. Cremonini, E. Gorgucci, and L. Baldini, 2006: Dualpol radar calibration and correction of the bias introduced by non uniform radome wetting. Proc. Fourth European Conf. on Radar in Meteorology, Barcelona, Spain, ERAD, 593-596.
6. Bechini, R., V. Chandrasekar, R. Cremonini, and S. Lim, 2010: Radome attenuation at X-band radar operations. Proc. Sixth European Conf. on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology, Sibiu, Romania, ERAD, P15.1.
7. Blevis, B., 1965: Losses due to rain on radomes and antenna reflecting surfaces. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., 13, 175-176.
8. Bringi, V. N., and V. Chandrasekar, 2001: Polarimetric Doppler Weather Radar: Principles and Applications. Cambridge University Press, 648 pp.
9. Bringi, V. N., G. J. Huang, V. Chandrasekar, and E. Gorgucci, 2002: A methodology for estimating the parameters of a gamma raindropsize distribution model from polarimetric radar data: Application to a squall-line event from the TRMM/Brazil campaign. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 19, 633-655.
10. Bringi, V. N., M. Thurai, K. Nakagawa, G. J. Huang, T. Kobayashi, A. Adachi, H. Anado, and S. Sekizawa, 2006: Rainfall estimation from C-band polarimetric radar in Okinawa, Japan: Comparison with 2D-video disdrometer and 400 MHz wind profiler. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 84, 705-724.
11. Chandrasekar, V., A. Hou, E. Smith, V. N. Bringi, S. A. Rutledge, E. Gorgucci, W. A. Petersen, and G. S. Jackson, 2008: Potential role of dual-polarization radar in the validation of satellite precipitation measurements. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 89, 1127-1145.
12. Chandrasekar, V., D. Willie, Y. Wang, and S. Lim, 2009: Attenuation margin requirements in a networked radar system for observation of precipitation. IEEE Int. Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symp., Cape Town, South Africa, IEEE, 10.1109/ IGARSS.2009.5418259.
13. Frech, M.,B. Lange, T. C.Mammen, J. E. E. Seltmann,C.Morehead, and J. Rowan, 2011: Onsite radome performance verification. Preprints, 35th Conf. on Radar Meteorology, Pittsburgh, PA, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 15A.3. [Available online at https://ams. confex.com/ams/35Radar/webprogram/Paper191458.html.]
14. Germann, U., 1999: Radome attenuation-A serious limiting factor for quantitative rain measurements. Meteor. Z., 8, 85-90.
15. Gibble, D., 1964: Effect of rain on transmission performance of a satellite communication system. IEEE International Convention Record: Part VI, IEEE, 52.
16. Goddard, J. W. F., J. Tan, and M. Thurai, 1994: A technique for calibration of meteorological radars using differential phase. IEE Electron. Lett., 30, 166-167.
17. Gorgucci, E., and L. Baldini, 2007: Attenuation and differential attenuation correction of C-band radar observation using a fully self-consistent methodology. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett., 4, 326-330.
18. Gorgucci, E., G. Scarchilli, and V. Chandrasekar, 1992: Calibration of radars using polarimetric techniques. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 30, 853-858.
19. Gorgucci, E., G. Scarchilli, and V. Chandrasekar, 1999: A procedure to calibrate multiparameter weather radar using properties of the rain medium. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 37, 269-276.
20. Gorgucci, E., V. Chandrasekar, and L. Baldini, 2006: Rainfall estimation from X-band dual polarization radar using reflectivity and differential reflectivity. Atmos. Res., 82, 164-172.
21. Gourley, J. J., P. Tabary, and J. Parent du Chatelet, 2006: Data quality of the Meteo-France C-band polarimetric radar. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 23, 1340-1356.
22. Hubbert, J., and V. N. Bringi, 1995: An iterative filtering technique for the analysis of copolar differential phase and dualfrequency radar measurements. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 12, 643-648.
23. Illingworth, A., and T. Blackman, 2002: The need to represent raindrop size spectra as normalized gamma distributions for the interpretation of polarization radar observations. J. Appl. Meteor., 41, 286-297.
24. Kurri, M., and A. Huuskonen, 2008: Measurements of the transmission loss of a radome at different rain intensities. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 25, 1590-1599.
25. Manz, A., 2001: Radome influence on weather radar systems, principles and calibration issues. Workshop on Radar Calibration, Albuquerque, NM, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 8 pp. [Available online at http://cdserver.ametsoc.org/cd/010430_1/ pdf/radcal-11-manz-radome.pdf.]
26. Ryzhkov, A. V., S. E. Giangrande, V. M. Melnikov, and T. J. Schuur, 2005: Calibration issues of dual-polarization radar measurements. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 22, 1138-1155.
27. Scarchilli, G., E. Gorgucci, V. Chandrasekar, and A. Dobaie, 1996: Self-consistency of polarization diversity measurement of rainfall. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 34, 22-26.
28. Schneebeli, M., J. Sakuragi, T. Biscaro, C. F. Angelis, I. Carvalho da Costa, C. Morales, L. Baldini, and L. A. T. Machado, 2012: Polarimetric X-band weather radar measurements in the tropics: Radome and rain attenuation correction. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 5, 2183-2199, doi:10.5194/amt-5-2183-2012.
29. Tapping, K., 2001: Antenna calibration using the 10.7 cm solar flux. Workshop on Radar Calibration, Albuquerque, NM, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 32 pp. [Available online at http://cdserver. ametsoc.org/cd/010430_1/pdf/radcal-12-tapping_solar_flux.pdf.]
30. Thurai, M., and H. Hanado, 2005: Absolute calibration of C-band weather radars using differential propagation phase in rain. IEE Electron. Lett., 41, 1405-1406.
31. Trabal, J. M., I. Zawadzki, and D. J. McLaughlin, 2008: A method to correct for wet radome attenuation in CASA radars by the use of a contiguous WSR-88D radar. Proc. Fifth Conf. on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology, Helsinki, Finland, ERAD, P5.8.
32. Vivekanandan, J., G. Zhang, S. Ellis, D. Rajopadhyaya, and S. Avery, 2003: Radar reflectivity calibration using different propagation phase measurement. Radio Sci., 38, 8049, doi:10.1029/2002RS002676.
33. Waterman, P. C., 1979: Matrix methods in potential theory and electromagnetic scattering. J. Appl. Phys., 50, 4550-4565.
34. Zrnic, D. S., V. M. Melnikov, and J. K. Carter, 2006: Calibrating differential reflectivity on the WSR-88D. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 23, 944-951.