IMPROVED COUPLED Z-R AND K-R RELATIONS AND THE RESULTING AMBIGUITIES IN THE DETERMINATION OF THE VERTICAL-DISTRIBUTION OF RAIN FROM THE RADAR BACKSCATTER AND THE INTEGRATED ATTENUATION
Zs. Haddad et al., IMPROVED COUPLED Z-R AND K-R RELATIONS AND THE RESULTING AMBIGUITIES IN THE DETERMINATION OF THE VERTICAL-DISTRIBUTION OF RAIN FROM THE RADAR BACKSCATTER AND THE INTEGRATED ATTENUATION, Journal of applied meteorology, 34(12), 1995, pp. 2680-2688
Several algorithms to calculate a rain-rate profile from a single-freq
uency air- or spaceborne radar backscatter profile and a given path-in
tegrated attenuation have been proposed. The accuracy of any such algo
rithm is limited by the ambiguities between the (multiple) exact solut
ions, which depend on the variability of the parameters in the Z-R and
k-R relations used. In this study, coupled Z-R and k-R relations are
derived based on the drop size distribution. It is then shown that, be
cause of the coupling, the relative difference between the multiple mu
tually ambiguous rain-rate profiles solving the problem must remain ac
ceptably low, provided the available path-integrated attenuation value
is known to within 0.5 dB.