Assessment of polarimetric rain rate algorithms at C-band frequencies

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of different polarimetric rainfall estimation algorithms at C-band frequencies. The polarimetric rainfall algorithms are obtained using a wide range of measured drop size distributions with an optical disdrometer in the UK. A dense network of raingauges was used to validate the polarimetric rainfall estimates and the overall results were compared with the conventional Marshall and Palmer relationship. The uncertainty in the rainfall estimation due to noise in the polarimetric radar measurements is also addressed in this paper.