Disdrometer

About: Disdrometer is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 930 publications have been published within this topic receiving 23092 citations.

Sensitivity of C-Band Polarimetric Radar–Based Drop Size Estimates to Maximum Diameter

Abstract: Estimating raindrop size has been a long-standing objective of polarimetric radar–based precipitation retrieval methods. The relationship between the differential reflectivity Zdr and the median volume diameter D0 is typically derived empirically using raindrop size distribution observations from a disdrometer, a raindrop physical model, and a radar scattering model. Because disdrometers are known to undersample large raindrops, the maximum drop diameter Dmax is often an assumed parameter in the rain physical model. C-band Zdr is sensitive to resonance scattering at drop diameters larger than 5 mm, which falls in the region of uncertainty for Dmax. Prior studies have not accounted for resonance scattering at C band and Dmax uncertainty in assessing potential errors in drop size retrievals. As such, a series of experiments are conducted that evaluate the effect of Dmax parameterization on the retrieval error of D0 from a fourth-order polynomial function of C-band Zdr by varying the assumed Dmax thr...

Microphysical characteristics of the raindrop size distribution in typhoon morakot （2009）

Abstract: Microphysical characteristics of the raindrop size distribution(RSD)in Typhoon Morakot(2009) have been studied through the PARSIVEL disdrometer measurements at one site in Fujian province,China during the passage of the storm from 7 to 10 August 2009.The time evolution of the RSD reveals different segments of the storm.Significant difference was observed in the microphysical characteristics between the outer rainband and the eyewall;the eyewall precipitation had a broader size distribution(a smaller slope) than the outer rainband and eye region.The outer rainband and the eye region produced stratiform rains while the eyewall precipitation was convective or mixed stratiform-convective.The RSD was typically characterized by a single peak distribution and well represented by the gamma distribution.The relations between the shape(μ)and slope(Λ)of the gamma distribution and between the reflectivity(Z)and rainfall rate(R)have been investigated.Based on the NW-Dm relationships,we suggest that the stratiform rain for the outer rainband and the eye region was formed by the melting of graupel or rimed ice particles,which likely originated from the eyewall clouds.

Theoretical and empirical scale dependency of Z-R relationships: Evidence, impacts, and correction

Abstract: Estimation of rainfall intensities from radar measurements relies to a large extent on power-laws relationships between rain rates R and radar reflectivities Z, i.e., Z = a*R^b. These relationships are generally applied unawarely of the scale, which is questionable since the nonlinearity of these relations could lead to undesirable discrepancies when combined with scale aggregation. Since the parameters (a,b) are expectedly related with drop size distribution (DSD) properties, they are often derived at disdrometer scale, not at radar scale, which could lead to errors at the latter. We propose to investigate the statistical behavior of Z-R relationships across scales both on theoretical and empirical sides. Theoretically, it is shown that claimed multifractal properties of rainfall processes could constrain the parameters (a,b) such that the exponent b would be scale independent but the prefactor a would be growing as a (slow) power law of time or space scale. In the empirical part (which may be read independently of theoretical considerations), high-resolution disdrometer (Dual-Beam Spectropluviometer) data of rain rates and reflectivity factors are considered at various integration times comprised in the range 15 s - 64 min. A variety of regression techniques is applied on Z-R scatterplots at all these time scales, establishing empirical evidence of a behavior coherent with theoretical considerations: a grows as a 0.1 power law of scale while b decreases more slightly. The properties of a are suggested to be closely linked to inhomogeneities in the DSDs since extensions of Z-R relationships involving (here, strongly nonconstant) normalization parameters of the DSDs seem to be more robust across scales. The scale dependence of simple Z = a*R^b relationships is advocated to be a possible source of overestimation of rainfall intensities or accumulations. Several ways for correcting such scaling biases (which can reach >15-20% in terms of relative error) are suggested. Such corrections could be useful in some practical cases where Z-R scale biases are significant, which is especially expected for convective rainfall.