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Hail remains a major threat to agriculture in Switzerland and beyond and assessments of current and future hail risk are of paramount importance for decision-making in the insurance industry and the agricultural sector. However, relating observational information on hail with crop-specific damages is challenging. Here, we build and systematically assess a model to predict hail damage footprints for field crops (wheat, maize, barley, rapeseed) and grapevine from the operational radar product Maximum Expected Severe Hail Size (MESHS) at different spatial resolutions. To this end, we combine the radar information with detailed geospatial information on agricultural land use and geo-referenced damage data from a crop insurer for 12 recent hail events in Switzerland. We find that for field crops, model skill gradually increases when the spatial resolution is reduced from 1 km down to 8 km. For even lower resolutions, the skill is diminished again. On the contrary, for grapevine, a lower model resolution tends to reduce skill, which is attributed to the different spatial distribution of field crops and grapevine in the landscape. It is shown that identifying a suitable MESHS thresholds to model damage footprints always involves trade-offs. For the lowest possible MESHS threshold (20 mm) the model predicts damage about two times too often (high frequency bias and number of false alarms) but also has a high probability of detection (80 %). The frequency bias decreases for larger thresholds and reaches an optimal value close to 1 for MESHS thresholds of 30–40 mm. However, this comes at the cost of a substantially lower probability of detection (around 50 %) while overall model skill remains largely unchanged. We argue that, ultimately, the best threshold selection therefore depends on the user need and the costs of a false alarm or a missed event. Finally, the frequency of false alarms can be substantially reduced when only areas with high cropland density are considered. Results from this simple, open-source model show that modelling of hail damage footprints to crops from single-polarization radar in Switzerland is skillful and is best done at 8 km resolution for field crops and 1 km for grapevine. They further allow different users of such models to identify the suitable threshold for their application, taking into account associated trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a comprehensive quality-controlled 15-month dataset of remote sensing observations of low-level mixed-phase clouds (LLMPCs) taken at the high Arctic site of Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway. LLMPCs occur frequently in the Arctic region and extensively affect the energy budget. However, our understanding of the ice microphysical processes taking place in these clouds is incomplete. The dual-wavelength and polarimetric Doppler cloud radar observations, which are the cornerstones of the dataset, provide valuable fingerprints of ice microphysical processes, and the high number of cases included allows for the compiling of robust statistics for process studies. The radar data are complemented with thermodynamic retrievals from a microwave radiometer, liquid base height from a ceilometer, and wind fields from large-eddy simulations. All data are quality controlled, especially the cloud radar data, which are accurately calibrated, matched, and corrected for gas and liquid-hydrometeor attenuation, ground clutter, and range folding. We finally present an analysis of the temperature dependence of Doppler, dual-wavelength, and polarimetric radar variables, to illustrate how the dataset can be used for cloud microphysical studies. The dataset has been published in and is freely available at: 10.5281/zenodo.7803064. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new dual-frequency Stratospheric Tropospheric (ST) / Meteor radar has been built and installed at the Langfang Observatory in northern China. It utilizes a novel two-frequency system design that allows interleaved operation at 53.8 MHz for ST mode and at 35.0 MHz for Meteor mode, thus optimizing performance for both ST wind retrieval and meteor trail detection. In dedicated meteor mode, the daily meteor count rate reaches over 40,000 and allows wind estimation at finer time resolutions than the 1-hour typical of most meteor radars. The root mean square uncertainty of the ST wind measurements is better than 2 m/s when estimating the line of best fit with radiosonde winds. Preliminary observation results for one month of winter gravity wave (GW) momentum fluxes in the mesosphere, lower stratosphere and troposphere are also presented. A case of waves generated by the passage of a cold front is found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assimilates for the first time polarimetric C-band radar observations from the German meteorological service (DWD) into DWD's convective-scale model ICON-D2 using DWD's ensemble-based KENDA assimilation framework. We compare the assimilation of conventional observations (CNV) with the additional assimilation of radar reflectivity Z (CNV + Z), with the additional assimilation of liquid or ice water content (LWC or IWC) estimates below or above the melting layer instead of Z where available (CNV + LWC /Z or CNV + IWC /Z respectively). Hourly quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF) are evaluated for two stratiform and one convective rainfall events in the summers of 2017 and 2021. With optimized data assimilation settings (e.g., observation errors), the assimilation of LWC mostly improves first-guess QPF compared with the assimilation of Z alone (CNV + Z), whereas the assimilation of IWC does not, especially for convective cases, probably because of the lower quality of the IWC retrieval in these situations. Improvements are, however, notable for stratiform rainfall in 2021, for which the IWC estimator profits from better specific differential phase estimates owing to a higher radial radar resolution than the other cases. The assimilation of all radar data sets together (CNV + LWC + IWC + Z) yields the best first guesses. All assimilation configurations with radar information consistently improve deterministic 9 h QPF compared with the assimilation of only conventional data (CNV). Forecasts based on the assimilation of LWC and IWC retrievals on average slightly improve Fraction Skill Score (FSS) and Frequency Bias (FBI) compared with the assimilation of Z alone (CNV + Z), especially when LWC is assimilated for the 2017 convective case and when IWC is assimilated for the high-resolution 2021 stratiform case. However, IWC assimilation again degrades forecast FSS for the convective cases. Forecasts initiated using all radar data sets together (CNV + LWC + IWC + Z) yield the best FSS. The development of IWC retrievals that are more adequate for convection constitutes one next step to further improving the exploitation of ice microphysical retrievals for radar data assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long term observations of deep convective cloud (DCC) vertical velocity and mass flux were collected during the GoAmazon2014/5 experiment. Precipitation echoes from a surveillance weather radar near Manaus, Brazil are tracked to identify and evaluate the isolated DCC lifecycle evolution during the dry and wet seasons. A Radar Wind Profiler (RWP) provides precipitation and air motion profiles to estimate the vertical velocity, mass flux, and mass transport rates within overpassing DCC cores as a function of the tracked cell lifecycle stage. The average radar reflectivity factor (Z), DCC area (A), and surface rainfall rate (R) increased with DCC lifetime as convective cells were developing, reached a peak as the cells matured, and decreased thereafter as cells dissipated. As the convective cells mature, cumulative DCC properties exhibit stronger updraft behaviors with higher upward mass flux and transport rates above the melting layer (compared to initial and later lifecycle stages). In comparison, developing DCCs have the lowest Z associated with weak updrafts, and negative mass flux and transport rates above the melting layer. Over the DCC lifetime, the height of the maximum downward mass flux decreased whereas the height of maximum net mass flux increased. During the dry season, the tracked DCCs had higher Z, propagation speed, and DCC area, and were more isolated spatially compared to the wet season. Dry season DCCs exhibit higher Z, mass flux, and mass transport rate while developing whereas wet season DCCs exhibit higher Z, mass flux, and mass transport rates at later stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WindRAD (Wind Radar) is a dual-frequency rotating fan-beam scatterometer instrument on the FY-3E (FengYun-3E) satellite. Scatterometers are generally calibrated using the linear NOC (NWP Ocean Calibration) method to control the main gain factor of the radar. While WindRAD is stable, the complex geometry, the design of the instrument, and the rotating antenna make the backscatter (σ∘) distributions persistently non-linear; hence NOC is insufficient. Therefore, a higher-order calibration (HOC) method is proposed. The CDF (cumulative distribution function) matching technique is employed to match the CDF of measured σ∘ instances to simulated σ∘ instances. HOC removes the non-linearities for each incidence angle. However, it is not constructed to remove the anomalous harmonic azimuth dependencies caused by the antenna rotation. These azimuth dependencies are reduced by NOCant (NOC as a function of incidence angle and relative antenna azimuth angle). Therefore, the combination of HOC and NOCant is implemented to correct both anomalous σ∘ amplitude and azimuth variations. The wind retrieval performance is evaluated with NOCant, HOC, and HOC and NOCant combined. The wind statistics and the cone distance metric both show that HOC&NOCant achieves the optimal winds for C-band and Ku-band. The calibrations have been tested on two operational input data versions; HOC works well on both data versions and HOC&NOCant can achieve the optimal wind performance for both data versions. This confirms the usefulness of HOC in the case of non-linear instrument gain anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weather radars are increasingly being used to study the interaction between wildfires and the atmosphere, owing to the enhanced spatio-temporal resolution of radar data compared to conventional measurements, such as satellite imagery and in situ sensing. An important requirement for the continued proliferation of radar data for this application is the automatic identification of fire-generated particle returns (pyrometeors) from a scene containing a diverse range of echo sources, including clear air, ground and sea clutter, and precipitation. The classification of such particles is a challenging problem for common image segmentation approaches (e.g. fuzzy logic or unsupervised machine learning) due to the strong overlap in radar variable distributions between each echo type. Here, we propose the following two-step method to address these challenges: (1) the introduction of secondary, texture-based fields, calculated using statistical properties of gray-level co-occurrence matrices (GLCMs), and (2) a Gaussian mixture model (GMM), used to classify echo sources by combining radar variables with texture-based fields from (1). Importantly, we retain all information from the original measurements by performing calculations in the radar's native spherical coordinate system and introduce a range-varying-window methodology for our GLCM calculations to avoid range-dependent biases. We show that our method can accurately classify pyrometeors' plumes, clear air, sea clutter, and precipitation using radar data from recent wildfire events in Australia and find that the contrast of the radar correlation coefficient is the most skilful variable for the classification. The technique we propose enables the automated detection of pyrometeors' plumes from operational weather radar networks, which may be used by fire agencies for emergency management purposes or by scientists for case study analyses or historical-event identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind turbines negatively affect the performance of weather radars, especially when located in the proximity of a radar site. In March 2019, MeteoSwiss performed a measurement campaign by deploying a mobile X-band radar in Schaffhausen. It proved to be useful for mapping and characterizing the maximum power returns by three wind turbines observed using standard scanning strategies. In March 2020, the campaign was repeated using a more sophisticated scan strategy: ∼ 100 min special sessions of fixed pointing an antenna towards the nacelle of the closest wind turbine (WT) located within a range of 7766 m from the radar, interleaved every 2 h by a scanning protocol identical to that of the March 2019 campaign. Polarimetric radar signatures were derived every 64 ms using 128 radar pulses transmitted every 0.5 ms (pulse repetition frequency (PRF) = 2000 Hz). A thorough overview of the polarimetric signatures of the WT in still or quasi-still conditions has been obtained based on 30 000 polarimetric measurables acquired over 32 min on the first day of the campaign (4 March 2020). During the first 2 min with zero rotor speed, the co-polar correlation coefficient between the orthogonal polarization states, ρHV , was persistently equal to 1, similarly to the signature of a bright scatterer observed by a non-rotating antenna. The changes between two consecutive values of the differential reflectivity and radar reflectivity factor were either 0 dBz or ± 0.5 dBz. Due to the absence of precipitation, one could assume that the standard deviation of the differential phase shift, which was as small as 3.0 ∘ , can be entirely attributed to the variability of the differential backscattering phase shift. There were two 10 min periods during which the rotor moved less than 1 revolution. It is worth noting that this slow movement could be associated with a change in the blade pitch angle and the nacelle orientation, which caused extreme changes in the radar reflectivity factor. For instance, two pairs of 64 ms consecutive values reached 78.5 dBz, which is the absolute maximum reached in the whole campaign (4–21 March 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal areas can be tremendously biodiverse and host a substantial part of the world's population and critical infrastructure. However, there are often fragile environments that face various hazards such as flooding, coastal erosion, land salinization or pollution, earthquake-induced land motion, or anthropogenic processes. In this article, we investigate the stability of the Nice Côte d'Azur Airport, which has been built on reclaimed land in the Var River delta (French Riviera, France). This infrastructure, as well as the ongoing subsidence of the airport runways, has been a permanent concern since the partial collapse of the platform in 1979. Here, we used the full archive of ESA SAR (synthetic-aperture radar) images from 1992 to 2020 to comprehensively monitor the dynamics of the airport subsidence. We found that the maximum downward motion rate has been slowing down from 16 mm yr -1 in the 1990s to 8 mm yr -1 today. However, sediment compaction is still active, and an acceleration phase of the continuous creep leading to a potential failure of a part of the platform cannot be excluded. Our study demonstrates the importance of remotely monitoring of the platform to better understand the motion of coastal land, which will ultimately help evaluate and reduce associated hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratiform rain and the overlying ice play crucial roles in the Earth's climate system. From a microphysics standpoint, water mass flux primarily depends on two variables: particles concentration and their mass. The Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) on the Global Precipitation Measurement mission core satellite is a space-borne instrument capable of estimating these two quantities through dual-wavelength measurements. In this study, we evaluate bulk statistics on the ice particle properties derived from dual-wavelength radar data in relation to the properties of rain underneath. Specifically, we focus on DPR observations over stratiform precipitation, characterized by columns exhibiting a prominent bright band, where the melting layer can be easily detected. Our analysis reveals a significant increase in the retrieved mass flux as we transition from the ice to the rain phase in the official DPR product. This observation is in disagreement with our expectation that mass flux should remain relatively stable across the bright band in cold rain conditions. To address these discrepancies, we propose an alternative retrieval algorithm that ensures a gradual transition of Dm (mean mass-weighted particle melted-equivalent diameter) and precipitation rate across the melting zone. This approach also helps in estimating bulk ice density above the melting level. These findings demonstrate that DPR observations can not only quantify ice particle content and their size above stratiform rain regions but also estimate bulk density, provided uniform conditions that minimize uncertainties related to partial beam filling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winds from two wind-profiling radars, ESRAD (ESrange atmospheric RADar) in Arctic Sweden and MARA (Moveable Atmospheric Radar for Antarctica) on the coast of Antarctica, are compared with collocated (within 100 km) winds measured by the Doppler lidar on board the Aeolus satellite for the time period July 2019–May 2021 (baseline 2B11). Data are considered as a whole and subdivided into summer and winter as well as ascending (afternoon) and descending (morning) passes. Mean differences (bias) and random differences are categorized (standard deviation and scaled median absolute deviation) and the effects of different quality criteria applied to the data are assessed, including the introduction of the "modified Z score" to eliminate gross errors. This last criterion has a substantial effect on the standard deviation, particularly for Mie winds. Significant bias is found in two cases, for Rayleigh winds for the descending satellite passes. at MARA (-1.4 (+ 0.7) m s -1) and for all Mie winds at ESRAD (+ 1.0 (+ 0.3) m s -1). For the Rayleigh winds at MARA, there is no obvious explanation for the bias in the data distribution. The Mie wind error with respect to the wind data measured at ESRAD shows a skewed distribution toward positive values (Aeolus horizontal line-of-sight wind > ESRAD wind). Random differences (scaled median absolute deviation) for all data together are 5.9 and 5.3 m s -1 for Rayleigh winds at MARA and ESRAD, respectively, and 4.9 and 3.9 m s -1 for Mie winds. When the comparison is restricted to Aeolus measurements with a mean location within 25 km from the radars, there is no change to the random differences for Rayleigh winds, but for Mie winds they are reduced to 3.3 and 3.6 m s -1. These represent an upper bound for Aeolus wind random errors since they are due to a combination of spatial differences and random errors in both radar winds and Aeolus winds. The random errors in radar winds are < 2 m s -1 and therefore contribute little, but spatial variability clearly makes a significant contribution for Mie winds, especially at MARA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) of the Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) has a new capability to observe the Doppler velocity related to the vertical air motion of the terminal velocity of hydrometeors. The new observation from space will be used to evaluate and improve the model. Before the launch of EarthCARE, we need to develop a methodology for using the CPR data for model evaluations. In this study, we evaluated simulated data by a stretched version of the global non-hydrostatic model over Japan with a ground-based CPR using an instrument design similar to the EarthCARE CPR. We chose two cases with different precipitation events in September 2019 using two cloud microphysics schemes. We introduced the categorization method for evaluating microphysics using Doppler velocity. The results show that the liquid and solid phases of hydrometeors are divided in Doppler velocity, and the model's terminal velocities of rain, snow, and graupel categories can be evaluated with the observation. The results also show that the choice of microphysics scheme has a more significant impact than the dependence on precipitation cases. We discussed the application of the EarthCARE-like simulation results using a satellite simulator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Arctic clouds occur below 2 km altitude, as revealed by CloudSat satellite observations. However, recent studies suggest that the relatively coarse spatial resolution, low sensitivity, and blind zone of the radar installed on CloudSat may not enable it to comprehensively document low-level clouds. We investigate the impact of these limitations on the Arctic low-level cloud fraction, which is the number of cloudy points with respect to all points as a function of height, derived from CloudSat radar observations. For this purpose, we leverage highly resolved vertical profiles of low-level cloud fraction derived from down-looking Microwave Radar/radiometer for Arctic Clouds (MiRAC) radar reflectivity measurements. MiRAC was operated during four aircraft campaigns that took place in the vicinity of Svalbard during different times of the year, covering more than 25 000 km. This allows us to study the dependence of CloudSat limitations on different synoptic and surface conditions. A forward simulator converts MiRAC measurements to synthetic CloudSat radar reflectivities. These forward simulations are compared with the original CloudSat observations for four satellite underflights to prove the suitability of our forward-simulation approach. Above CloudSat's blind zone of 1 km and below 2.5 km , the forward simulations reveal that CloudSat would overestimate the MiRAC cloud fraction over all campaigns by about 6 percentage points (pp) due to its horizontal resolution and by 12 pp due to its range resolution and underestimate it by 10 pp due to its sensitivity. Especially during cold-air outbreaks over open water, high-reflectivity clouds appear below 1.5 km , which are stretched by CloudSat's pulse length causing the forward-simulated cloud fraction to be 16 pp higher than that observed by MiRAC. The pulse length merges multilayer clouds, whereas thin low-reflectivity clouds remain undetected. Consequently, 48 % of clouds observed by MiRAC belong to multilayer clouds, which reduces by a factor of 4 for the forward-simulated CloudSat counterpart. Despite the overestimation between 1 and 2.5 km , the overall low-level cloud fraction is strongly reduced due to CloudSat's blind zone that misses a cloud fraction of 32 % and half of the total (mainly light) precipitation amount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possibility of using multi-source precipitation estimates for climatological applications. A data-processing algorithm (RainGRS Clim) has been developed to work on precipitation accumulations such as daily or monthly totals, which are significantly longer than operational accumulations (generally between 5 min and 1 h). The algorithm makes the most of additional opportunities, such as the possibility of complementing data with delayed data, access to high-quality data that are not operationally available, and the greater efficiency of the algorithms for data quality control and merging with longer accumulations. Verification of the developed algorithms was carried out using monthly accumulations through comparison with precipitation from manual rain gauges. As a result, monthly accumulations estimated by RainGRS Clim were found to be significantly more reliable than accumulations generated operationally. This improvement is particularly noticeable for the winter months, when precipitation estimation is much more difficult due to less reliable radar estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Goddard Profiling algorithm (GPROF) converts radiometer observations aboard Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) constellation satellites to precipitation estimates. Analyzing the accuracy of GPROF's estimates is vital to further improve the algorithm. Such analyses often use high-quality ground-based estimates as reference with a different spatial resolution. Often, the reference is resampled to match the satellite's resolution. However, the implemented sampling method to simulate the satellite's resolution varies amongst studies, which limits the transferability of conclusions. additionally, GPROF combines observations from various sensors and frequency channels, each with its own footprint size. Hence, uncertainties related to sampling are added on top of the uncertainty introduced when converting brightness temperatures to precipitation intensities. The contribution of sampling to the total amount of uncertainty remains unknown. Here, we quantify the uncertainty related to sampling while analyzing the current performance of GPROF over the Netherlands during a four year period (2017–2020). In this area, shallow and light precipitation frequently occur. Both precipitation types are often subject to research, as both types are difficult to detect with space-borne sensors. Only GPROF estimates based on observations from the conical-scanning radiometers of the GPM constellation are used. We investigate the uncertainty related to sampling by simulating the reference precipitation as satellite footprints that vary in size, geometry, and applied weighting technique. The reference estimates are gauge-adjusted radar precipitation estimates from two ground-based weather radars from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). Echo top heights (ETH) retrieved from the same radars are used to classify the precipitation as shallow, medium, or deep. The method used to spatially average the reference into a satellite footprint, i.e. using Gaussian weighting or the arithmetic mean, is found to exhibit a minimal influence on the retrieved estimate. The size of the sampled area is found to be the most influential. Still, the effect of using different footprint sizes cannot explain all the differences between the ground- and satellite based precipitation estimates. Additionally, the discrepancies between GPROF and the reference are largest for low ETH, while the relative bias between the different footprint sizes and implemented weighting methods increase with increasing ETH. Lastly, our results do not show a clear difference between coastal simulations and simulations over land. We conclude that the uncertainty introduced by merging different channels and sensors cannot fully explain the errors introduced by the retrieval algorithm. Hence, retrieval errors are found to be more prominent than sampling uncertainties, in particular for shallow and light precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid precipitation measurements in Antarctica are crucial as snowfall represents the main water input term for the polar cap, and its probable increase in the coming century can mitigate sea-level rise caused by global warming. This paper presents 7 years of Micro Rain Radar (Metek MRR-2) data at the Dumont d'Urville station in coastal Adélie Land, East Antarctica. Statistics are calculated on 3 radar variables (equivalent reflectivity, mean Doppler velocity and signal-to-noise ratio) to outline the main characteristics of the radar dataset. Seasonal and interannual variabilities are also investigated, but no significant temporal trends are detected except for the seasonal mean Doppler velocity which is higher in summer and lower in winter. We then use the snowfall rate (S) data from a colocated snow-gauge to estimate the MRR precipitation profile from the radar equivalent reflectivity (Ze) through a locally derived Ze-S relation. We find the relation Ze = 43.3 S0.88. The processing method used to obtain this relation, data quality and uncertainty considerations are discussed in the manuscript. In order to give an example of application of the dataset, a brief statistical comparison of the MRR precipitation rate along the vertical with model data from the ERA5 reanalysis and the LMDZ climate model is performed, and notably shows that models underestimate heavy precipitation events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we delve into the influence of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice-nucleating particles (INP) concentrations on the morphology and abundance of ice particles in mixed-phase clouds, emphasizing the consequential impact of ice particle shape, number, and size on cloud dynamics and microphysics. Leveraging the synergy of the Advanced Microphysics Prediction System (AMPS) and the Kinematic Driver (KiD) model, we conducted simulations to capture cloud microphysics across diverse CCN and INP concentrations. The Passive and Active Microwave radiative TRAnsfer (PAMTRA) radar forward simulator further augmented our study, offering insights into how the concentrations of CCN and INP affect radar reflectivities. Our experimental framework encompassed CCN concentrations ranging from 10 to 5000 cm−3 and INP concentrations from 0.001 to 10 L−1. Central to our findings are the observation that increased INP concentrations yield smaller ice particles, while a surge in CCN concentrations leads to a subtle growth in their dimensions. Consistent with existing literature, our results spotlight plate-like crystals as dominant between temperatures of −20 to −16 °C. Notably, high INP scenarios unveiled a significant prevalence of irregular polycrystals. The Aspect Ratio (AR) of ice particles exhibited a decline with the rise in both CCN and INP concentrations, highlighting the nuanced interrelation between CCN levels and ice particle shape, especially its ramifications on the riming mechanism. The forward-simulated radar reflectivities, spanning from −11.83 dBZ (low-INP, 0.001 L−1) to 4.65 dBZ (high-INP, 10 L−1), elucidate the complex dynamics between CCN and INP in determining mixed-phase cloud characteristics. Comparable differences in radar reflectivity were also reported from observational studies of stratiform mixed-phase clouds in contrasting aerosol environments. Our meticulous analysis of KiD-AMPS simulation outputs, coupled with insights into aerosol-driven microphysical changes, thus underscores the significance of this study in refining our ability to understand and interpret observations and climate projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NASA's Vapor In-cloud Profiling Radar (VIPR) is a tunable G-band radar designed for in-cloud and precipitation humidity remote sensing. VIPR estimates humidity using the differential absorption radar (DAR) technique. This technique exploits the difference between atmospheric attenuation at different frequencies ("on" and "off" an absorption line) and combines it with the ranging capabilities of the radar to estimate the absorbing gas concentration along the radar path. We analyze the VIPR humidity measurements during two NASA field campaigns: (1) the Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) campaign, with the objective of studying wintertime snowstorms focusing on East Coast cyclones; and (2) the Synergies Of Active optical and Active microwave Remote Sensing Experiment (SOA2RSE) campaign which studied the synergy between DAR (VIPR) and differential absorption lidar (DIAL, the High altitude Lidar Observatory – HALO) measurements. We discuss a comparison with dropsondes launched during these campaigns as well as an intercomparison against the ERA5 reanalysis fields. Thus, this study serves as an additional evaluation of ERA5 lower tropospheric humidity fields. In addition, we show a smooth transition in water vapor profiles between the in-cloud and clear-sky measurements obtained from VIPR and HALO respectively, which highlights the complementary nature of these two measurement techniques for future airborne and space-based missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate estimations of extreme precipitation return levels are critical for many hydrological applications. Extreme precipitation is highly variable in both space and time, therefore, to better understand and manage the related risks, knowledge of their probability at different spatial-temporal scales is crucial. We employ a novel non-asymptotic framework to estimate extreme return levels (up to 100 years) at multiple spatial-temporal scales from weather radar precipitation estimates. The approach reduces uncertainties and enables the use of relatively short archives typical of weather radar data (12 years in this case). We focus on the eastern Mediterranean, an area of high interest due to its sharp climatic gradient, containing Mediterranean, semi-arid and arid areas across a few tens of kilometres, and its susceptibility to flash-flood. At-site intensity-duration-area-frequency relations are derived from radar precipitation data at various scales (10 min–24 h, 0.25 km2–500 km2) across the study area, using ellipses of varying axes and orientations to account for the spatial component of storms. We evaluate our analysis using daily rain gauge data over areas for which sufficiently dense gauge networks are available. We show that extreme return levels derived from radar precipitation data for 24 h and 100 km2 are generally comparable to those derived from averaging daily rain gauge data over a similar areal scale. We then analyse differences in multi-scale extreme precipitation over coastal, mountainous, and desert regions. Our study reveals that the power-law scaling relationship between precipitation and duration (simple scaling) weakens for increasing area sizes. This has implications for temporal downscaling. Additionally, precipitation intensity varies significantly for different area sizes at short durations, but becomes more similar at long durations, suggesting that, in the region, areal reduction factors may not be necessary for computing return levels over long durations. Furthermore, the reverse orographic effect, which causes decreased precipitation for hourly and sub-hourly durations, diminishes for larger areas. Finally, we discuss the effects of orography and coastline proximity on extreme precipitation intensity over different spatial-temporal scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WPR-LQ-7 is a UHF (1.3575 GHz) wind profiler radar used for routine measurements of the lower troposphere at Shigaraki MU Observatory (34.85 ∘ N, 136.10 ∘ E; Japan) at a vertical resolution of 100 m and a time resolution of 10 min. Following studies carried out with the 46.5 MHz middle and upper atmosphere (MU) radar (Luce et al., 2018), we tested models used to estimate the rate of turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation ε from the Doppler spectral width in the altitude range ∼ 0.7 to 4.0 km above sea level (a.s.l.). For this purpose, we compared LQ-7-derived ε using processed data available online (http://www.rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp/radar-group/blr/shigaraki/data/ , last access: 24 July 2023) with direct estimates of ε (εU) from DataHawk UAVs. The statistical results reveal the same trends as reported by Luce et al. (2018) with the MU radar, namely (1) the simple formulation based on dimensional analysis εLout=σ3/Lout , with Lout∼70 m, provides the best statistical agreement with εU. (2) The model εN predicting a σ2N law (N is Brunt–Vaïsälä frequency) for stably stratified conditions tends to overestimate for εU≲5×10-4 m 2 s -3 and to underestimate for εU≳5×10-4 m 2 s -3. We also tested a model εS predicting a σ2S law (S is the vertical shear of horizontal wind) supposed to be valid for low Richardson numbers (Ri=N2/S2). From the case study of a turbulent layer produced by a Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) instability, we found that εS and εLout are both very consistent with εU , while εN underestimates εU in the core of the turbulent layer where N is minimum. We also applied the Thorpe method from data collected from a nearly simultaneous radiosonde and tested an alternative interpretation of the Thorpe length in terms of the Corrsin length scale defined for weakly stratified turbulence. A statistical analysis showed that εS also provides better statistical agreement with εU and is much less biased than εN. Combining estimates of N and shear from DataHawk and radar data, respectively, a rough estimate of the Richardson number at a vertical resolution of 100 m (Ri100) was obtained. We performed a statistical analysis on the Ri dependence of the models. The main outcome is that εS compares well with εU for low Ri100 (Ri100≲1), while εN fails. εLout varies as εS with Ri100 , so that εLout remains the best (and simplest) model in the absence of information on Ri. Also, σ appears to vary as Ri100-1/2 when Ri100≳0.4 and shows a degree of dependence on S100 (vertical shear at a vertical resolution of 100 m) otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF) is used operationally for the retrieval of surface precipitation and hydrometeor profiles from the passive microwave (PMW) observations of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. Recent updates have led to GPROF V7, which has entered operational use in May 2022. In parallel, development is underway to improve the retrieval by transitioning to a neural-network-based algorithm called GPROF-NN. This study validates GPROF V7 and multiple configurations of the GPROF-NN retrieval against ground-based radar mea- surements over the conterminous United States (CONUS) and the tropical Pacific. GPROF retrievals from the GPMMicrowave Imager (GMI) are validated over several years and their ability to reproduce regional precipitation characteristics and effective resolution is assessed. Moreover, the retrieval accuracy for several other sensors of the constellation is evaluated. The validation of GPROF V7 indicates that the retrieval produces reliable precipitation estimates over CONUS. During all four assessed years, annual mean precipitation is within 8% of gauge-corrected radar measurements. Although biases of up to 25% are observed over sub-regions of the CONUS and the tropical Pacific, the retrieval reproduces the principal precipitation characteristics of each region. The effective resolution of GPROF V7 is found to be 51km over CONUS and 18km over the tropical Pacific. GPROF V7 produces robust precipitation estimates also for the other sensors of the GPM constellation. The evaluation further shows that the GPROF-NN retrievals have the potential to significantly improve the GPROF precipi- tation retrievals. GPROF-NN 1D, the most basic neural network implementation of GPROF, improves the mean-squared error, mean absolute error, correlation and symmetric mean absolute percentage error by about twenty percent for GPROF GMI while the effective resolution is improved to 31km over land and 15km over oceans. The two GPROF-NN retrievals that are based on convolutional neural networks can further improve the accuracy up to the level of the combined radar/radiometer retrievals from the GPM core observatory. However, these retrievals are found to overfit on the viewing geometry at the center of the swath, reducing their overall accuracy to that of GPROF-NN 1D. For the other sensors of the constellation, the GPROF-NN retrievals produce larger biases than GPROF V7 and only GPROF-NN 3D achieves consistent improvements compared to GPROF V7 in terms of the other assessed error metrics. This points to shortcomings in the hydrometeor profiles or radiative transfer simulations used in the training of the retrievals for the other sensors of the GPM constellation as a critical limitation for improving GPM PMW retrievals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large hail events are typically infrequent, with significant time gaps between occurrences at specific locations. However, when these events do happen, they can cause rapid and substantial economic losses within a matter of minutes. Therefore, it is crucial to have the ability to accurately observe and understand hail phenomena to improve the mitigation of this impact. While in-situ observations are accurate, they are limited in number for an individual storm. Weather radars, on the other hand, provide a larger observation footprint, but current radar-derived hail size estimates exhibit low accuracy due to horizontal advection of hailstones as they fall, the variability of hail size distributions (HSD), complex scattering and attenuation, and mixed hydrometeor types. In this paper, we propose a new radar-derived hail product that is developed using a large dataset of hail damage insurance claims and radar observations. We use these datasets coupled with environmental information to calculate a Hail Damage Estimate (HDE) using a deep neural network approach aiming to quantify hail impact, with a critical success index of 0.88 and a coefficient of determination against observed damage of 0.78. Furthermore, we compared HDE to a popular hail size product (MESH), allowing us to identify meteorological conditions that are associated with biases on MESH. Environments with relatively low specific humidity, high CAPE and CIN, low wind speeds aloft and southerly winds at ground are associated with a negative MESH bias, potentially due to differences in HSD or mixed hydrometeors. In contrast, environments with low CAPE, high CIN, and relatively high specific humidity aloft are associated with a positive MESH bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations of vertical wind in Chongqing, a typical mountainous city in China, are important, but sparse and have low resolution. To obtain more wind profile data, this study matched the Aeolus track with ground-based wind observation sites in Chongqing in 2021. Based on the obtained results, verification and quality control studies were conducted on the wind observations of a wind profile radar (WPR) with radiosonde (RS) data, and a comparison of the Aeolus Mie-cloudy and Rayleigh-clear wind products with WPR data was then performed. The conclusions can be summarized as follows: (1) A clear correlation between the wind observations of WPR and RS was found, with a correlation coefficient (R) of 69.92%. Their root-mean-square deviation increased with height but decreased by 3 - 4 km. (2) After quality control of Gaussian filtering (GF) and empirical orthogonal function construction (EOFc, G = 87.23%) of the WPR data, the R between the WPR and RS reached 76.00% and 95.44%, respectively. The vertical distribution showed that GF could better retain the characteristics of WPR wind observations, but with limited improvement in decreasing deviations, whereas EOFc performed better in decreasing deviations, but considerably modified the original characteristics of the wind field, especially regarding intensive vertical wind shear in strong convective weather processes. (3) In terms of the differences between the Aeolus and WPR data, 56.0% and 67.8% deviations were observed between ± 5 m/s for Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy winds vs. WPR winds, respectively. Vertically, the mean differences of both Rayleigh-clean and Mie-cloudy winds versus WPR winds appeared below 1.5 km, which is attributed to the prevailing quiet and small winds within the boundary layer in Chongqing, such that the movement of molecules and aerosols is mostly affected by irregular turbulence. Additionally, large mean differences of 4-8 km for Mie-cloudy versus WPR winds may be related to the high content of cloud liquid water in the middle troposphere, influenced by the topography of the Tibetan Plateau. (4) The differences in both Rayleigh-clear and Mie-cloudy versus WPR winds had changed. Deviations of 58.9% and 59.6% were concentrated between ±5m/s for Rayleigh-clear versus WPR winds with GF and EOFc quality control, respectively. In contrast, 69.1% and 70.2% of deviations appeared between ± 5 m/s for Rayleigh-clear versus WPR and EOFc WPR winds, respectively. These results shed light on the comprehensive applications of multi-source wind profile data in mountainous cities or areas with sparse ground-based wind observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measurements of radar backscatter are sensitive to snow water equivalent (SWE) across a wide range of frequencies, motivating proposals for satellite missions to measure global distributions of SWE. However, radar backscatter measurements are also sensitive to snow stratigraphy, microstructure and to surface roughness, complicating SWE retrieval. A number of recent advances have created new tools and datasets with which to address the retrieval problem, including a parameterized relationship between SWE, microstructure, and radar backscatter, and methods to characterize surface scattering. Although many algorithms also introduce external (prior) information on SWE or snow microstructure, the precision of the prior datasets used must be high in some cases in order to achieve accurate SWE retrieval. We hypothesize that a time series of radar measurements can be used to solve this problem, and demonstrate that SWE retrieval with acceptable error characteristics is achievable by using previous retrievals as priors for subsequent retrievals. We demonstrate the accuracy of three configurations of the prior information: using a global SWE model, using the previously retrieved SWE, and using a weighted average of the model and the previous retrieval. We assess the robustness of the approach by quantifying the sensitivity of the SWE retrieval accuracy to SWE biases artificially introduced in the prior. We find that the retrieval with the weighted averaged prior demonstrates SWE accuracy better than than 20 %, and an error increase of only 3 % relative RMSE per 10 % change in prior bias; the algorithm is thus both accurate and robust. This finding strengthens the case for future radar-based satellite missions to map SWE globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea ice volume's significant interannual variability requires long-term series of observations to identify trends in its evolution. Despite improvements in sea ice thickness estimations from altimetry during the past few years thanks to CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2, former ESA radar altimetry missions such as the Environmental Satellite (Envisat) and especially the European Remote-Sensing Satellite (ERS-1 and ERS-2) have remained under-exploited so far. Although solutions have already been proposed to ensure continuity of measurements between CryoSat-2 and Envisat, there is no time series integrating ERS. The purpose of this study is to extend the Arctic radar freeboard time series back to 1995. The difficulty in handling ERS measurements comes from a technical issue known as the pulse blurring effect, altering the radar echoes over sea ice and the resulting surface height estimates. Here we present and apply a correction for this pulse blurring effect. To ensure consistency of the CryoSat-2, Envisat and ERS-2 time series, a multiparameter neural-network-based method to calibrate Envisat against CryoSat-2 and ERS-2 against Envisat is presented. The calibration is trained on the discrepancies observed between the altimeter measurements during the mission-overlap periods and a set of parameters characterizing the sea ice state. Monthly radar freeboards are provided with uncertainty estimations based on a Monte Carlo approach to propagate the uncertainties all along the processing chain, including the neural network. Comparisons of corrected radar freeboards during overlap periods reveal good agreement between the missions, with a mean bias of 0.30 cm and a standard deviation of 9.7 cm for Envisat and CryoSat-2 and a 0.20 cm bias and a standard deviation of 3.8 cm for ERS-2 and Envisat. The monthly corrected radar freeboards obtained from Envisat and ERS-2 are then validated by comparison with several independent datasets such as airborne, mooring, direct-measurement and other altimeter products. Except for two datasets, comparisons lead to correlations ranging from 0.41 to 0.94 for Envisat and from 0.60 to 0.74 for ERS-2. The study finally provides radar freeboard estimation for winters from 1995 to 2021 (from the ERS-2 mission to CryoSat-2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we study a Mediterranean cyclone, that was called Helios and took place during the period 9-11 February 2023 in the southeastern part of Sicily and Malta Island, by a multiparametric approach combining microseism results with sea state and meteorological data provided by wavemeter buoy, HF Radar, hindcast maps and satellite SEVIRI images. The sub-tropical system Helios caused heavy rainfall, strong wind gusts and violent storm surges with significant wave heights greater than 5 meters. We deal with the relationships between such a system and the features of microseism (the most continuous and ubiquitous seismic signal on the Earth) in terms of spectral content, space-time variation of the amplitude and source locations tracked by means of two different methods (amplitude-based grid search and array techniques). By comparing the location of the microseism sources and the area affected by significant storm surges, derived from sea state data, we note that the microseism location results are in agreement with the real position of the storm surges. In addition, we are able to obtain the seismic signature of Helios using a method that exploits the coherence of continuous seismic noise. Hence, we show how an innovative monitoring system of the Mediterranean cyclones can be designed by integrating microseism information with other techniques routinely used to study meteorological phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cloud-profiling radar (CPR) on the Earth Clouds, Aerosol, and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite (EC-CPR) is the first satellite-borne Doppler radar. In a previous study, we examined the effects of horizontal (along-track) integration and simple unfolding methods on the reduction of Doppler errors in the EC-CPR observations, and those effects were evaluated using two limited scenes in limited-latitude and low-pulse-repetition-frequency (PRF) settings. In this study, the amount of data used was significantly increased, and the area of the data used was extended globally. Not only low-PRF but also high-PRF settings were examined. We calculated the EC-CPR-observed Doppler velocity from pulse-pair covariances using the radar reflectivity factor and Doppler velocity obtained from a satellite data simulator and a global storm-resolving simulation. The global data were divided into five latitudinal zones, and each standard deviation of Doppler errors for 5 dB Ze after 10 km integration was calculated. In the case of the low-PRF setting, the error without unfolding correction for the tropics reached a maximum of 2.2 m s -1 and then decreased toward the poles (0.43 m s -1). The error with unfolding correction for the tropics became much smaller at 0.63 m s -1. In the case of the high-PRF setting, the error without unfolding correction for the tropics reached a maximum of 0.78 m s -1 and then decreased toward the poles (0.19 m s -1). The error with unfolding correction for the tropics was 0.29 m s -1 , less than half the value without the correction. The results of the analyses of the simulated data indicated that the zonal mean frequency of precipitation echoes was highest in the tropics and decreased toward the poles. Considering a limitation of the unfolding correction for discrimination between large upward velocity and large precipitation falling velocity, the latitudinal variation in the standard deviation of Doppler error can be explained by the precipitation echo distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convective wind gusts (CGs) are usually related to thunderstorms, and they may cause great structural damage and serious hazards, such as train derailment, service interruption, and building collapse. Due to the small-scale and nonstationary nature of CGs, reliable CG nowcasting with high spatial and temporal resolutions has remained unattainable. In this study, a novel nowcasting model based on deep learning – namely, CGsNet – is developed for 0–2 h lead times of quantitative CG nowcasting, achieving minute–kilometer-level forecasts. CGsNet is a physics-constrained model established by training on large corpora of average surface wind speed (ASWS) and radar observations; it can produce realistic and spatiotemporally consistent ASWS predictions in CG events. By combining the gust factor (1.77, the ratio of the observed peak wind gust speed (PWGS) to the ASWS) with the ASWS predictions, the PWGS forecasts are estimated with a spatial resolution of 0.01 ∘ × 0.01 ∘ and a 6 min temporal resolution. CGsNet is shown to be effective, and it has an essential advantage in learning the spatiotemporal features of CGs. In addition, quantitative evaluation experiments indicate that CGsNet exhibits higher generalization performance for CGs than the traditional nowcasting method based on numerical weather prediction models. CG-nowcasting technology can be applied to provide real-time quantitative CG forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hailstorms, while fascinating from a meteorological perspective, pose significant risks to communities, agriculture, and infrastructure. In regions such as the Central Andes of Peru, the characteristics and frequency of these extreme weather events remain largely uncharted. This study fills this gap by investigating the historical frequency and vertical structure of hailstorms in this region. We analyzed historical hailstorm records dating back to 1958 alongside four years of observations (2017–2021) from Parsivel2 disdrometer and a cloud profiler radar MIRA35c. Our findings indicate a trend of decreasing hail frequency (-0.5 events/decade). However, the p-value of 0.07 suggests the need for further investigation, particularly in relation to environmental changes and reporting methods. The results show that hailstorms predominantly occur during the austral summer months, with peak frequency in December, and are most common during the afternoon and early evening hours. The analysis of radar variables such as reflectivity, radial velocity, spectral width, and linear depolarization ratio (LDR) reveals distinct vertical profiles for hail events. Two case studies highlight the diversity in the radar measurements of hailstorms, underscoring the complexity of accurate hail detection. This study suggests the necessity for refining the Parsivel2 algorithm and further understanding its classification of hydrometeors. Additionally, the limitations of conventional radar variables for hail detection are discussed, recommending the use of LDR and Doppler spectrum analysis for future research. Our findings lay the groundwork for the development of more efficient hail detection algorithms and improved understanding of hailstorms in the Central Andes of Peru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that the Gaussianity of observation error distribution is the fundamental principle of most current modern data assimilation methods, the error structure of radar reflectivity becomes increasingly important with the development of reflectivity assimilation in convection-allowing numerical weather prediction. This study examines the error distribution of radar reflectivity and discusses what give rise to the non-Gaussian error distribution by using 6 month reflectivity departures between observations and simulations in the Southwest China. By following the symmetric error model in all-sky satellite radiance assimilation, we unveil the error structure of radar reflectivity as a function of symmetric rainrates, which is the average of observed and simulated rainrates. Unlike satellite radiance, the reflectivity error shows a sharper slope in light precipitations than moderate precipitations. Thus, a three-piecewise fitting function is more suitable for radar reflectivity than a two-piecewise fitting function. The probability distribution functions of reflectivity departures normalized by symmetric rainrates become more Gaussian in comparison with the raw probability distribution function. Moreover, the possibility of using third-party predictor to construct the symmetric error model are also discussed in this study. According to the Jensen-Shannon divergence, a more linear predictor, the logarithmic transformation of rainrate, can provide the most Gaussian error distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite mission is a joint endeavour developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and features a 94 GHz Doppler Cloud Profiling Radar. This paper presents the theoretical basis of the cloud and precipitation microphysics (C-CLD) EarthCARE Level 2 (L2) algorithm. The C-CLD algorithm provides the best estimates of the vertical profiles of water mass content and hydrometeor characteristic size, obtained from radar reflectivity, path-integrated signal attenuation and hydrometeor sedimentation Doppler velocity estimates using optimal estimation (OE) theory. To obtain the forward model relations and the associated uncertainty, an ensemble-based method is used. This ensemble consists of a collection of in situ measured drop size distributions that cover natural microphysical variability. The ensemble mean and standard deviation represent the forward model relations and their microphysics-based uncertainty. The output variables are provided on the joint standard grid horizontal and EarthCARE Level 1b (L1b) vertical grid (1 km along track and 100 m vertically). The OE framework is not applied to liquid-only clouds in drizzle-free and lightly drizzling conditions, where a more statistical approach is preferred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EarthCARE mission aims to probe the Earth's atmosphere by measuring cloud and aerosol profiles using its active instruments, the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) and ATmospheric LIDar (ATLID). The correct identification of hydrometeors and aerosols from atmospheric profiles is an important step in retrieving the properties of clouds, aerosols and precipitation. Ambiguities in the nature of atmospheric targets can be removed using the synergy of collocated radar and lidar measurements, which is based on the complementary spectral response of radar and lidar relative to atmospheric targets present in the profiles. The instruments are sensitive to different parts of the particle size distribution and provide independent but overlapping information in optical and microwave wavelengths. ATLID is sensitive to aerosols and small cloud particles, and CPR is sensitive to large ice particles, snowflakes and raindrops. It is therefore possible to better classify atmospheric targets when collocated radar and lidar measurements exist compared to using a single instrument. The cloud phase, precipitation and aerosol type within the column sampled by the two instruments can then be identified. ATLID-CPR target classification (AC-TC) is the product created for this purpose by combining the ATLID target classification (A-TC) and CPR target classification (C-TC). AC-TC is crucial for the subsequent synergistic retrieval of cloud, aerosol and precipitation properties. AC-TC builds upon previous target classifications using CloudSat and CALIPSO synergy while providing richer target classification using the enhanced capabilities of EarthCARE's instruments, specifically CPR's Doppler velocity measurements to distinguish snow and rimed snow from ice clouds and ATLID's lidar ratio measurements to objectively discriminate between different aerosol species and optically thin ice clouds. In this paper, we first describe how the single-instrument A-TC and C-TC products are derived from ATLID and CPR measurements. Then the AC-TC product, which combines the A-TC and C-TC classifications using a synergistic decision matrix, is presented. Simulated EarthCARE observations based on combined cloud-resolving and aerosol model data are used to test the processors generating the target classifications. Finally, the target classifications are evaluated by quantifying the fractions of ice and snow, liquid clouds, rain, and aerosols in the atmosphere that can be successfully identified by each instrument and their synergy. We show that radar–lidar synergy helps better detect ice and snow, with ATLID detecting radiatively important optically thin cirrus and cloud tops, while CPR penetrates most deep and highly concentrated ice clouds. The detection of rain and drizzle is entirely due to C-TC, while that of liquid clouds and aerosols is due to A-TC. The evaluation also shows that simple assumptions can be made to compensate for when the instruments are obscured by extinction (ATLID) or surface clutter and multiple scattering (CPR); this allows for the recovery of the majority of liquid cloud not detected by the active instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind-driven redistribution of snow on sea ice alters its topography and microstructure, yet the impact of these processes on radar signatures is poorly understood. Here, we examine the effects of snow redistribution over Arctic sea ice on radar waveforms and backscatter signatures obtained from a surface-based, fully polarimetric Ka- and Ku-band radar at incidence angles between 0 ∘ (nadir) and 50 ∘. Two wind events in November 2019 during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition are evaluated. During both events, changes in Ka- and Ku-band radar waveforms and backscatter coefficients at nadir are observed, coincident with surface topography changes measured by a terrestrial laser scanner. At both frequencies, redistribution caused snow densification at the surface and the uppermost layers, increasing the scattering at the air–snow interface at nadir and its prevalence as the dominant radar scattering surface. The waveform data also detected the presence of previous air–snow interfaces, buried beneath newly deposited snow. The additional scattering from previous air–snow interfaces could therefore affect the range retrieved from Ka- and Ku-band satellite altimeters. With increasing incidence angles, the relative scattering contribution of the air–snow interface decreases, and the snow–sea ice interface scattering increases. Relative to pre-wind event conditions, azimuthally averaged backscatter at nadir during the wind events increases by up to 8 dB (Ka-band) and 5 dB (Ku-band). Results show substantial backscatter variability within the scan area at all incidence angles and polarizations, in response to increasing wind speed and changes in wind direction. Our results show that snow redistribution and wind compaction need to be accounted for to interpret airborne and satellite radar measurements of snow-covered sea ice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the correlation between hydrometeor type and radar spectrum width (σv) according to wind speed that can occur the atmospheric disturbances such as turbulence and wind shear. The σv zones shown as peak values were identified only in stratiform precipitation and they are highly related to the hydrometeor growth zones. Statistical analysis was performed for eight precipitation cases under various conditions (precipitation type, season), focusing on the Dendrite Growth Zone (DGZ) and the Needle Growth Zone (NGZ), where Dendrite (DN) and Needle (NE) type snowflakes are dominant, respectively. They were determined by the Growth Zone Determination Algorithm (GZDA) that was proposed in this study. The intensity of the σv depends on atmospheric conditions (i.e., wind speed) and season (i.e., temperature). The high σv and negative relationship with the differential radar reflectivity (ZDR) in the DGZ for all cases is consistent with the aerodynamic properties of DN. As the range of σv was larger than that of ZDR, it was confirmed that the dependence of σv according to atmospheric conditions is significant. Contrastingly, the NGZ had a low σv and weak σv-ZDR negative relationship with a narrow range of σv, which is consistent with the aerodynamic properties of NE. The lower cross-correlation coefficient (ρhv) in the DGZ than that in the NGZ implies that the irregularities (particle shape and aerodynamics features) of DN were more pronounced than those of NE. Finally, as the altitudes of two growth zones were determined by temperature, the possibility of estimating sub-zero temperature by GZDA was confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe convective weather events, such as hail, lightning and heavy rainfall pose a great threat to humans and cause a considerable amount of economic damage. Nowcasting convective storms can provide warning signals and mitigate the impact of these storms. Dual-polarization weather radars are a crucial source of information for nowcasting severe convective events; nevertheless, they are most often not considered in nowcasting. These radars provide signatures of different hydrometeors. This work presents the importance of polarimetric variables as an additional data source for nowcasting thunderstorm hazards using an existing neural network architecture with convolutional and recurrent layers. This network has a common framework, which enables nowcasting of hail, lightning and heavy rainfall for lead times up to 60 min with a 5 min resolution. The study area is covered by the Swiss operational radar network, which consists of five operational polarimetric C-band radars. Results indicate that including polarimetric variables and quality indices improve the accuracy of nowcasting heavy precipitation and lightning, with the largest improvement found for heavy precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses surface disdrometer reflectivity factor estimates to calibrate the vertical and off-vertical pointing radar beams produced by an ultra high frequency (UHF) band radar wind profiler (RWP) deployed at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Southern Great Plains (SGP) Central Facility in northern Oklahoma from April 2011 through July 2019. The methodology consists of five steps. First, the recorded Doppler velocity power spectra are adjusted to account for Nyquist velocity aliasing and coherent integration filtering effects. Second, the spectrum moments are calculated. The third step increases the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to inflated noise power estimates during convective rain events that cause SNR to be biased low. The fourth step determines the RWP calibration constant for one radar beam (called the "reference" beam) by comparing uncalibrated RWP reflectivity factors at 500 m above the ground to 1 min resolution surface disdrometer reflectivity factors. The last step uses the calibrated reference beam reflectivity factor to calibrate the other radar beams during precipitation. There are two key findings. The RWP sensitivity decreased by approximately 3 to 4 dByr-1 as the hardware aged. This drift was slow enough that the reference calibration constant can be estimated over 3-month intervals using episodic rain events. The calibrated moments are available on the DOE ARM data archive, and the Python processing code is available on public repositories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melting and refreezing processes in the firn of the Devon Ice Cap control meltwater infiltration and runoff across the ice cap, but their full spatial extent and effect on near-surface structure is difficult to measure with surface-based traverses or existing satellite remote sensing. Here, we derive the coherent component of the near-surface return from airborne ice-penetrating radar surveys over the Devon Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic, to characterize firn containing centimeter- to meter-thick ice layers (i.e., ice slabs) formed from refrozen meltwater in firn. We assess the use of dual-frequency airborne ice-penetrating radar to characterize the spatial and vertical near-surface structure of the Devon Ice Cap by leveraging differences in range resolution of the radar systems. Comparison with reflectivities using a thin layer reflectivity model, informed by surface-based radar and firn core measurements, indicates that the coherent component is sensitive to the near-surface firn structure composed of quasi-specular ice and firn layers, limited by the bandwidth-constrained radar range resolution. Our results suggest that average ice slab thickness throughout the Devon Ice Cap percolation zone ranges from 4.2 to 5.6 m. This implies conditions that can enable lateral meltwater runoff and potentially contribute to the total surface runoff routed through supraglacial rivers down glacier. Together with the incoherent component of the surface return previously studied, our dual-frequency approach provides an alternative method for characterizing bulk firn properties, particularly where high-resolution radar data are not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric Gravity Waves and Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances can be observed in the neutral atmosphere and the ionosphere at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Especially at medium scales, these oscillations are often not resolved in general circulation models and are parameterized. We show that ionospheric disturbances forced by upward propagating atmospheric gravity waves can be simultaneously observed with the EISCAT Very High Frequency incoherent scatter radar and the Nordic Meteor Radar Cluster. From combined multi-static measurements, both vertical and horizontal wave parameters can be determined by applying a specially developed Fourier filter analysis method. This method is demonstrated using the example of a strongly pronounced wave mode that occurred during the EISCAT experiment on 7 July 2020. Leveraging the developed technique, we show that the wave characteristics of Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances are notably impacted by the fall transition of the mesosphere/lower thermosphere. We also demonstrate the application of using the determined wave parameters to infer the thermospheric neutral wind velocities. Applying the dissipative anelastic gravity wave dispersion relation, we obtain vertical wind profiles in the lower thermosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two years (2021-2022) of High Frequency Radar (HFR) sea surface current data in the Gulf of Trieste (Northern Adriatic Sea) are analysed. Two different time scales are extracted using superstatistical formalism: a relaxation time and a larger timescale over which the system is gaussian. A new analytical universality class of Probability Density Functions (PDFs) is proposed for ocean current data combining a gaussian PDF for the fast fluctuations and a convolution of exponential PDFs for the slowly evolving variance of the gaussian. The Gaussian PDF has maximum entropy for real-valued variables with a given variance. If a positive variable, as is a variance, has a specified mean, the maximum entropy solution is an exponential PDF. Here it is the sum of two exponentials, reflecting the two spatial degrees of freedom. In the Gulf of Trieste there are three distinct main wind forcing regimes: Bora, Sirocco and low wind, leading to a succession of different sea current dynamics on different time scales. The universality class PDF successfully fits the observed data over the two observation years and also for each wind regime separately with a different variance of the variance PDF, which is the only free parameter in all the fits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite radar backscatter contains unique information on land surface moisture, vegetation features, and surface roughness and has thus been used in a range of Earth science disciplines. However, there is no single global radar data set that has a relatively long wavelength and a decades-long time span. We here provide the first long-term (since 1992), high-resolution (∼8.9 km instead of the commonly used ∼25 km resolution) monthly satellite radar backscatter data set over global land areas, called the long-term, high-resolution scatterometer (LHScat) data set, by fusing signals from the European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS; 1992–2001; C-band; 5.3 GHz), Quick Scatterometer (QSCAT, 1999–2009; Ku-band; 13.4 GHz), and the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT; since 2007; C-band; 5.255 GHz). The 6-year data gap between C-band ERS and ASCAT was filled by modelling a substitute C-band signal during 1999–2009 from Ku-band QSCAT signals and climatic information. To this end, we first rescaled the signals from different sensors, pixel by pixel. We then corrected the monthly signal differences between the C-band and the scaled Ku-band signals by modelling the signal differences from climatic variables (i.e. monthly precipitation, skin temperature, and snow depth) using decision tree regression. The quality of the merged radar signal was assessed by computing the Pearson r , root mean square error (RMSE), and relative RMSE (rRMSE) between the C-band and the corrected Ku-band signals in the overlapping years (1999–2001 and 2007–2009). We obtained high Pearson r values and low RMSE values at both the regional (r≥0.92 , RMSE ≤ 0.11 dB, and rRMSE ≤ 0.38) and pixel levels (median r across pixels ≥ 0.64, median RMSE ≤ 0.34 dB, and median rRMSE ≤ 0.88), suggesting high accuracy for the data-merging procedure. The merged radar signals were then validated against the European Space Agency (ESA) ERS-2 data, which provide observations for a subset of global pixels until 2011, even after the failure of on-board gyroscopes in 2001. We found highly concordant monthly dynamics between the merged radar signals and the ESA ERS-2 signals, with regional Pearson r values ranging from 0.79 to 0.98. These results showed that our merged radar data have a consistent C-band signal dynamic. The LHScat data set (10.6084/m9.figshare.20407857; Tao et al., 2023) is expected to advance our understanding of the long-term changes in, e.g., global vegetation and soil moisture with a high spatial resolution. The data set will be updated on a regular basis to include the latest images acquired by ASCAT and to include even higher spatial and temporal resolutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation (EarthCARE) satellite mission is a joint effort by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The EarthCARE mission features the first spaceborne 94 GHz cloud-profiling radar (CPR) with Doppler capability. The raw CPR observations and auxiliary information are used as input to three Level-2 (L2) algorithms: (1) C-APC: Antenna Pointing Characterization; (2) C-FMR: CPR feature mask and reflectivity; (3) C-CD: Corrected CPR Doppler Measurements. These algorithms apply quality control and corrections to the CPR primary measurements and derive important geophysical variables, such as hydrometeor locations, and best estimates of particle sedimentation fall velocities. The C-APC algorithm uses natural targets to introduce any corrections needed to the CPR raw Doppler velocities due to the CPR antenna pointing. The C-FMR product provides the feature mask based on only-reflectivity CPR measurements and quality-controlled radar-reflectivity profiles corrected for gaseous attenuation at 94 GHz. In addition, C-FMR provides best estimates of the path-integrated attenuation (PIA) and flags identifying the presence of multiple scattering in the CPR observations. Finally, the C-CD product provides the quality-controlled, bias-corrected mean Doppler velocity estimates (Doppler measurements corrected for antenna mispointing, non-uniform beam filling and velocity folding). In addition, the best estimate of the particle sedimentation velocity is estimated using a novel technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio waves propagating in the atmosphere are affected by the prevailing atmospheric state. The state of the atmosphere can cause radio waves to refract more or less towards the ground. When the refractive index of the atmosphere differs from standard atmospheric conditions, the propagation is considered to be anomalous. Radars which are affected by anomalous propagation can observe ground clutter far beyond the radar horizon. In this work, 4.5 years' worth of data from five operational Swedish C-band dual-polarization weather radars are presented. Analyses of the data reveal a strong seasonal cycle and a weaker diurnal cycle in ground clutter from coastal regions across nearby waters. A comparison was drawn between the impacts of anomalous propagation on ground clutter measured with horizontal polarization and vertical polarization, respectively; however, no clear difference was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WPR-LQ-7 is a UHF (1.3575 GHz) wind profiler radar used for routine measurements of the lower troposphere at Shigaraki MU observatory (34.85°N, 136.10°E, Japan) at a vertical resolution of 100 m and a time resolution of 10 min. Following studies carried out with the 46.5 MHz Middle and Upper atmosphere (MU) radar (Luce et al., 2018), we tested models used to estimate turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rates ε from the Doppler spectral width in the altitude range ~0.7 to 4.0 km ASL. For this purpose, we compared LQ-7-derived ε by using processed data available on line (http://www.rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp/radar-group/blr/shigaraki/data/) with direct estimates of ε (εU) from DataHawk UAVs. The statistical results reveal the same trends as reported by Luce et al. (2018) with the MU radar, namely: (1) The simple formulation based on dimensional analysis εLout = σ³/Lout, with Lout ~70 m, provides the best statistical agreement with εU. (2) The model εN predicting a σ²N law (S is Brunt-Vaïsälä frequency) for stably stratified conditions tends to overestimate for εU < ~5 10-4 m²s-3 and to underestimate for εU > ~5 10-4 mm²s-3. We also tested a model εS predicting a σ²S law (S is the vertical shear of horizontal wind) supposed to be valid for low Richardson numbers (Ri = N²/S#178;). From the case study of a turbulent layer produced by a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, we found that εS and εLout are both very consistent with εU, while εN underestimates εU in the core of the turbulent layer where N is minimum. We also applied the Thorpe method from data collected from a nearly simultaneous radiosonde and tested an alternative interpretation of the Thorpe length in terms of the Corrsin scale defined for weakly stratified turbulence. A statistical analysis showed that εS also provides better statistical agreement with εU and is much less biased than εN. Combining estimates of N and shear from DataHawk and radar data, respectively, a rough estimate of the Richardson number at a vertical resolution of 100 m (Ri100) was obtained. We performed a statistical analysis on the Ri dependence of the models. The main outcome is that εS compares well with εU for low Ri100's (Ri100 < ~1) while εN fails. εLout varies as εS with Ri100 so that εLout remains the best (and simplest) model in the absence of information on Ri. Also, σ appears to vary as Ri-1/2100 when Ri100 > ~0.4 and shows a degree of dependence with S100 otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric gravity waves and traveling ionospheric disturbances can be observed in the neutral atmosphere and the ionosphere at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Especially at medium scales, these oscillations are often not resolved in general circulation models and are parameterized. We show that ionospheric disturbances forced by upward-propagating atmospheric gravity waves can be simultaneously observed with the EISCAT very high frequency incoherent scatter radar and the Nordic Meteor Radar Cluster. From combined multi-static measurements, both vertical and horizontal wave parameters can be determined by applying a specially developed Fourier filter analysis method. This method is demonstrated using the example of a strongly pronounced wave mode that occurred during the EISCAT experiment on 7 July 2020. Leveraging the developed technique, we show that the wave characteristics of traveling ionospheric disturbances are notably impacted by the fall transition of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. We also demonstrate the application of using the determined wave parameters to infer the thermospheric neutral wind velocities. Applying the dissipative anelastic gravity wave dispersion relation, we obtain vertical wind profiles in the lower thermosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European climatological high-resolution gauge-adjusted radar precipitation dataset, EURADCLIM, addresses the need for an accurate (sub)daily precipitation product covering 78 % of Europe at a high spatial resolution. A climatological dataset of 1 and 24 h precipitation accumulations on a 2 km grid is derived for the period 2013 through 2020. The starting point is the European Meteorological Network (EUMETNET) Operational Program on the Exchange of Weather Radar Information (OPERA) gridded radar dataset of 15 min instantaneous surface rain rates, which is based on data from, on average, 138 ground-based weather radars. First, methods are applied to further remove non-meteorological echoes from these composites by applying two statistical methods and a satellite-based cloud-type mask. Second, the radar composites are merged with the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D) with potentially ∼ 7700 rain gauges from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in order to substantially improve its quality. Characteristics of the radar, rain gauge and satellite datasets are presented, as well as a detailed account of the applied algorithms. The clutter-removal algorithms are effective while removing few precipitation echoes. The usefulness of EURADCLIM for quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) is confirmed by comparison against rain gauge accumulations employing scatter density plots, statistical metrics and a spatial verification. These show a strong improvement with respect to the original OPERA product. The potential of EURADCLIM to derive pan-European precipitation climatologies and to evaluate extreme precipitation events is shown. Specific attention is given to the remaining artifacts in and limitations of EURADCLIM. Finally, it is recommended to further improve EURADCLIM by applying algorithms to 3D instead of 2D radar data and by obtaining more rain gauge data for the radar–gauge merging. The EURADCLIM 1 and 24 h precipitation datasets are publicly available at 10.21944/7ypj-wn68 and 10.21944/1a54-gg96. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The datasets presented in this article were collected during a 4-month measurement campaign at the Belgian research base Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA). The campaign, named PEA Orographic Precipitation Experiment (POPE), was conducted by the Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, with the logistical support of the International Polar Foundation, between the end of November 2019 and the beginning of February 2020. The datasets have been collected at five different sites. A W-band Doppler cloud profiler and a multi-angle snowflake camera (MASC) have been deployed in the immediate proximity of the main building of the station. An X-band dual-polarization Doppler scanning weather radar was installed 1.9 km southeast of PEA. Information on the various hydrometeor types have been derived from its measurements and from the images collected by the MASC. The remaining three sites were located in a transect across the mountain chain south of the base, between 7 and 17 km apart from each other. At each site, a K-band Doppler profiler and an automated weather station have been deployed. A pyrgeometer and a pyranometer accompanied the instruments at the site in the middle of the transect. The radar variables and the measurements collected by the weather stations and radiometers are available at 10.5281/zenodo.7428690. The Doppler spectra are available at 10.5281/zenodo.7507087 and 10.5075/epfl-lte-299685. A case study, covering the precipitation event recorded on 23 December 2019, is presented to illustrate the various datasets. Overall, the availability of radar measurements over a complex terrain, relatively far from a scientific base, is extremely rare in the Antarctic context and opens a wide range of possibilities for precipitation studies over the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of the China ocean dynamic environment satellite series (Haiyang-2, HY-2), it is urgent to explore the potential application of HY-2B in Arctic sea ice thickness retrievals. In this study, we first derive the Arctic radar freeboard and sea ice thickness during two cycles (from October 2019 to April 2020 and from October 2020 to April 2021) using the HY-2B radar altimeter and compare the results with the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) CryoSat-2 (CS-2) products. We evaluate our HY-2B sea ice freeboard and thickness products using Operation IceBridge (OIB) airborne data and Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) products. Finally, we estimate the uncertainties in the HY-2B sea ice freeboard and sea ice thickness. Here, we derive the radar freeboard by calculating the difference between the relative elevation of the floe obtained by subtracting the mean sea surface (MSS) height and sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) determined by an average of the 15 lowest points method. The radar freeboard deviation between HY-2B and CS-2 is within 0.02 m, whereas the sea ice thickness deviation between HY-2B and CS-2 is within 0.2 m. The HY-2B radar freeboards are generally thicker than AWI CS-2, except in spring (March and April). A spring segment likely has more floe points than an early winter segment. We also find that the deviations in radar freeboard and sea ice thickness between HY-2B and CS-2 over multiyear ice (MYI) are larger than those over first-year ice (FYI). The correlation between HY-2B (CS-2) sea ice freeboard retrievals and OIB values is 0.77 (0.84), with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.13 (0.10) m and a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.12 (0.081) m. The correlation between HY-2B (CS-2) sea ice thickness retrievals and OIB values is 0.65 (0.80), with an RMSE of 1.86 (1.00) m and an MAE of 1.72 (0.75) m. The HY-2B sea ice freeboard uncertainty values range from 0.021 to 0.027 m, while the uncertainties in the HY-2B sea ice thickness range from 0.61 to 0.74 m. The future work will include reprocessing the HY-2B L1 data with a dedicated sea ice retracker, and using the radar waveforms to directly identify leads to release products that are more reasonable and suitable for polar sea ice thickness retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The weather extremity index (WEI) and the cross-scale WEI (xWEI) are useful for determining the extremeness of precipitation events. Both require the estimation of return periods across different precipitation duration levels. For this purpose, previous studies determined annual precipitation maxima from radar composites in Germany and estimated the parameters of a generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution. Including the year 2021 in the estimation of GEV parameters, the devastating event in July 2021 drops from a rank of first to fourth regarding the WEI compared to all events between 2001 and 2020 but remains the most extreme regarding the xWEI. This emphasizes that it was extreme across multiple spatial and temporal scales and the importance of considering different scales to determine the extremeness of rainfall events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a 1D numerical model which calculates the age of ice around Dome C. It accounts either for melting or for a layer of stagnant ice above the bedrock, depending on the value of an inverted mechanical ice thickness. It is constrained by horizons picked from radar observations and dated using the EPICA Dome C (EDC) ice core age profile. We used 3 different radar datasets with the widest reaching airbourne radar system covering an area of 10,000 km2 and zooming in to 5 km transects over Little Dome C (LDC) with a ground based system. We find that stagnant ice exists in many places including above the LDC relief where the new Beyond EPICA drill site (BELDC) is located. The modelled thickness of this layer of stagnant ice roughly corresponds to the thickness of the basal unit observed in one of the radar surveys and observations made with Autonomous phase-sensitive Radio-Echo Sounder (ApRES). At BELDC, the modelled stagnant ice thickness is 182 ± 63 m and the modelled maximum age (that we define as the age at a maximum age density of 20 kyr m−1) is 1.49 ± 0.18 Ma at a depth of 2505 ± 34 m. This is very similar to all sites situated on the LDC relief such as that of the Million Year Ice Core project being conducted by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD). The model was also applied to radar data in the area 10–20 km north of EDC (North Patch, NP), where we find either a thin layer of stagnant ice (generally < 60 m) or a very low melt rate (< 0.1 mm yr−1). The modelled maximum age at NP is over 2 Ma in most places, with ice at 1.5 Ma having a resolution of 9–12 kyr m−1 , making it an exciting prospect for a future oldest ice drill site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiyear measurements from a Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer (5 years) and X-band dual-polarization radar (2 years) made at Gadanki (13.5 ∘ N, 79.18 ∘ E), a low-latitude station, are used to (i) retrieve appropriate raindrop size distribution (DSD) relations for monsoonal rain, (ii) understand their dependency on temperature, the raindrop size shape model and season and (iii) assess polarimetric radar DSD retrievals by various popular techniques (the exponential (Exp), constrained Gamma (CG), normalized Gamma (N-Gamma) and β methods). The coefficients obtained for different DSD relations for monsoonal rain are found to be different from those of existing relations elsewhere. The seasonal variation in DSD is quite large and significant, and as a result, the coefficients also vary considerably between the seasons. The slope of the drop size–shape relation, assumed to be constant in several studies, varies considerably between the seasons, with warmer seasons showing a smaller slope value than the cold season. It is found that the constant (0.062) used in linear drop shape models is valid only for the cold season. The derived coefficients for the CG method for different seasons coupled with those available in the literature reveal that the warm seasons/regions typically have larger curvature and slope values than in the cold seasons/regions. The coefficients of the mass-weighted mean diameter (Dm) and differential reflectivity (ZDR) exhibit a strong dependency on the drop shape model, while those for the derivation intercept parameter exhibit a strong seasonal dependency. Using the retrieved relations and X-band polarimetric radar at Gadanki, four popular DSD methods are evaluated against disdrometer measurements collected over 12 events. All the methods estimated Dm reasonably well with the small root mean square error but failed to estimate the intercept parameter accurately. Only the N-gamma method estimated the normalized intercept parameter reasonably. Problems associated with specific differential-phase (KDP)-based estimates close to the radar location, particularly during overhead convection, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]