Due to the large natural variability of its microphysical properties, the characterization of solid precipitation is a longstanding problem. Since in situ observations are unavailable in severe convective systems, innovative remote sensing retrievals are needed to extend our understanding of such systems. This study presents a novel technique able to retrieve the density, mass, and effective di...

The electromagnetic power that arrives from the Sun in the C-band has been used to check the quality of the polarimetric, Doppler weather radar network that has recently been installed in Switzerland. The operational monitoring of this network is based on the analysis of Sun signals in the polar volume data produced during the MeteoSwiss scan program. It relies on a method that has been develop...

Transponders (also known as polarimetric active radar calibrators or PARCs) are commonly used for radiometric calibration of synthetic aperture radars (SARs). Currently three methods for the determination of a transponder’s frequency-dependent radar cross section (RCS) are used in practice. These require either to measure disassembled transponder components, or a separate radiometric measuremen...

The scattering properties of a radar target can only be fully characterized by measuring a scattering matrix in which the elements represent the combinations of transmit and receive polarization states. The amount of information gathered by a traditional single polarization radar may therefore be even very limited, for example when the single polarization response is near zero while the cross p...

Cirrus clouds play an important role in the Earth’s radiation budget. The transfer of radiation through ice cloud layers depends on the particle phase, concentration, size distribution, and the cloud thickness and shape. Consequently, for reliable simulations of present and future climate using General Circulation Models an accurate representation of ice cloud properties is essential. This give...

The shape of rain drops has been studied in various ways over the past several decades, amongst them being (i) wind-tunnel measurements by Pruppacher and Beard (1970), (ii) numerical modelling of equilibrium drop shapes by Beard and Chuang (1987) and (iii) laboratory measurements by Beard et al. (1991) as well as Andsager et al. (1999). More recently, it has been shown that with a fully calibra...

The increasing interest for polarimetric measurements in operational radar systems requires careful consideration of calibration issues. Arpa Piemonte manages two C-band polarimetric and Doppler radars, located near Torino in Bric della Croce at 0.74 km MSL and near Savona in Monte Settepani over the Apennines at 1.40 km MSL, respectively. Both radar antennas are covered by radome, which is con...

One of the primary objectives of the fall 1997 intensive observation period (IOP) was to intercompare Ka-band (35 GHz) and W-band (95 GHz) cloud radar observations and verify system calibrations. During September 1997, several cloud radars were deployed at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site, including the full time operation 35-GHz CART millimeterwave cloud ...

This article proposes and presents a novel approach to the characterization of winter precipitation and modeling of radar observables through a synergistic use of advanced optical disdrometers for microphysical and geometrical measurements of ice and snow particles (in particular, a multi-angle snowflake camera—MASC), image processing methodology, advanced method-of-moments scattering computati...