Wet-radome attenuation in ARM cloud radars and its utilization in radar calibration using disdrometer measurements

Deng, Min; Giangrande, Scott E.; Jensen, Michael P.; Johnson, Karen; Williams, Christopher R.; Comstock, Jennifer M.; Feng, Ya-Chien; Matthews, Alyssa; Lindenmaier, Iosif A.; Wendler, Timothy G.; Rocque, Marquette; Zhou, Aifang; Zhu, Zeen; Luke, Edward; Wang, Die

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1641-2025

Articles | Volume 18, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1641-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1641-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 7

Research article

|

11 Apr 2025

Research article |

| 11 Apr 2025

Wet-radome attenuation in ARM cloud radars and its utilization in radar calibration using disdrometer measurements

Min Deng, Scott E. Giangrande, Michael P. Jensen, Karen Johnson, Christopher R. Williams, Jennifer M. Comstock, Ya-Chien Feng, Alyssa Matthews, Iosif A. Lindenmaier, Timothy G. Wendler, Marquette Rocque, Aifang Zhou, Zeen Zhu, Edward Luke, and Die Wang

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1641-2025-supplement

Data sets

Ka-Band Scanning ARM Cloud Radar Nitin Bharadwaj et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1469302

X-Band Scanning ARM Cloud Radar Nitin Bharadwaj et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1469303

vdisquants: Video Disdrometer derived radar equivalent quantities. Retrievals from the VDIS instrument providing radar equivalent quantities, including dual polarization radar quantities (e.g., Z, Differential Reflectivity ZDR) Joesph Hardin et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1592683

ARM: KAZRCFRGE Bradley Isom et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1498936

Interpolated Sonde (INTERPOLATEDSONDE) Michael Jensen et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1095316

Short summary

A relative calibration technique is developed for the cloud radar by monitoring the intercept of the wet-radome attenuation log-linear behavior as a function of rainfall rates in light and moderate rain conditions. This resulting reflectivity offset during the recent field campaign is compared favorably with the traditional disdrometer comparison near the rain onset, while it also demonstrates similar trends with respect to collocated and independently calibrated reference radars.