Print Email Facebook Twitter Rainfall-induced attenuation correction for two operational dual-polarization c-band radars in the Netherlands Title Rainfall-induced attenuation correction for two operational dual-polarization c-band radars in the Netherlands Author Overeem, A. (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI); Wageningen University & Research) de Vries, Hylke (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)) Sakka, Hassan Al (Leonardo Germany GmbH) Uijlenhoet, R. (TU Delft Water Resources; Wageningen University & Research) Leijnse, Hidde (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI); Wageningen University & Research) Date 2021 Abstract The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) operates two operational dual-polarization C-band weather radars providing 2D radar rainfall products. Attenuation can result in severe underestimation of rainfall amounts, particularly in convective situations that are known to have high impact on society. To improve the radar-based precipitation estimates, two attenuation correction methods are evaluated and compared: 1) modified Kraemer (MK) method, i.e., Hitschfeld–Bordan where parameters of the power-law Zh–kh relation are adjusted such that reflectivities in the entire dataset do not exceed 59 dBZh and attenuation correction is limited to 10 dB; and 2) using two-way path-inte-grated attenuation computed from the dual-polarization moment specific differential phase Kdp (Kdp method). In both cases the open-source Python library wradlib is employed for the actual attenuation correction. A radar voxel only con-tributes to the computed path-integrated attenuation if its height is below the forecasted freezing-level height from the numerical weather prediction model HARMONIE-AROME. The methods are effective in improving hourly and daily quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE), where the Kdp method performs best. The verification against rain gauge data shows that the underestimation diminishes from 55% to 37% for hourly rainfall for the Kdp method when the gauge indicates more than 10 mm of rain in that hour. The improvement for the MK method is less pronounced, with a resulting underestimation of 40%. The stability of the MK method holds a promise for application to data archives from single-polarization radars. Subject PrecipitationRadars/Radar observationsRainfallRemote sensing To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:44af0c88-66c7-47fe-9dbc-08241799ab40 DOI https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0113.1 Embargo date 2021-12-08 ISSN 0739-0572 Source Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 38 (6), 1125-1142 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2021 A. Overeem, Hylke de Vries, Hassan Al Sakka, R. Uijlenhoet, Hidde Leijnse Files PDF _15200426_Journal_of_Atmo ... rlands.pdf 4.7 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:44af0c88-66c7-47fe-9dbc-08241799ab40/datastream/OBJ/view