Measurement of Attenuation with Airborne and Ground-Based Radar in Convective Storms Over Land and Its Microphysical Implications

摘要

Observations by the airborne X-band Doppler radar (EDOP) and the NCAR S-band polarimetric (S-POL) radar from two field experiments are used to evaluate the Surface reference technique (SRT) for measuring the path integrated attenuation (PIA) and to study attenuation in deep convective storms. The EDOP, flying at an altitude of 20 km, uses a nadir beam and a forward pointing beam. It is found that over land, the surface scattering cross-section is highly variable at nadir incidence but relatively stable at forward incidence. It is concluded that measurement by the forward beam provides a viable technique for measuring PIA using the SRT. Vertical profiles of peak attenuation coefficient are derived in vxo deep convective storms by the dual-wavelength method. Using the measured Doppler velocity, the reflectivities at. the two wavelengths, the differential reflectivity and the estimated attenuation coefficients, it is shown that: supercooled drops and dry ice particles probably co-existed above the melting level in regions of updraft, that water-coated partially melted ice particles probably contributed to high attenuation below the melting level, and that the data are not readily explained in terms of a gamma function raindrop size distribution.