INTEGRATED MODEL FOR SIMULATION OF DUAL LINEAR-POLARIZATION RADAR MEASUREMENT FIELDS

A procedure is described for the simulation of radar reflectivity meas urements (absolute and differential) by dual linear polarisation meteo rological radars. The aim is that radar data obtained at the end of th e process be correlated in a physically plausible manner to the rainfa ll field at ground generated through a stochastic space-time rainfall model. The simulation procedure starts by generating volumetric reflec tivity fields from which the radar-measured fields are computed by sim ulating the radar volume sampling process while accounting for the rel ated errors. The rainfall fields serve as a basis for both the generat ion of the cited volumetric reflectivity fields and the definition of a high resolution ground truth reference, useful for testing performan ce of radar (and raingauge) data processing techniques conceived to im prove radar rainfall estimates. To this end, sample tests have been ma de to check the effectiveness of the differential reflectivity techniq ue employed to compensate for propagation attenuation, and to evaluate performance of radar calibration based on raingauge measurements. Res ults obtained through these tests are discussed.