Physics Commons^™

Partially Coherent Backscatter In Radar Observations Of Precipitation, A. R. Jameson, A. B. Kostinski

Department of Physics Publications

Classical radar theory only considers incoherent backscatter from precipitation. Can precipitation generate coherent scatter as well? Until now, the accepted answer has been no, because hydrometeors are distributed sparsely in space (relative to radar wavelength) so that the continuum assumption used to explain coherent scatter in clear air and clouds does not hold.

In this work, a theory for a different mechanism is presented. The apparent existence of the proposed mechanism is then illustrated in both rain and snow. A new power spectrum Z( f ), the Fourier transform of the time series of the radar backscattered reflectivities, reveals …

The Effect Of Clustering On The Uncertainty Of Differential Reflectivity Measurements, A. R. Jameson, A. B. Kostinski

Department of Physics Publications

One of the most important avenues of recent meteorological radar research is the application of polarization techniques to improve radar rainfall estimation. A keystone in many of these methods is the so-called differential reflectivity Z_DR, the ratio of the reflectivity factor Z_H at horizontal polarization backscattered from a horizontally polarized transmission to that corresponding to a vertically polarized transmission Z_V. For such quantitative applications, it is important to understand the statistical accuracy of observations of Z_DR. The underlying assumption of all past estimations of meteorological radar uncertainties is that the signals obey Rayleigh …