• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.467-481
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• 2017

A correction method of reflectivity in partial beam blockage (PBB) area is suggested, which is based on the combination of digital terrain information and self-consistency principle between polarimetric observation. First, the reflectivity was corrected by adding the radar energy loss estimated from beam blockage simulation using digital elevation model (DEM) and beam propagation geometry in standard atmosphere. The additional energy loss by unexpected obstacles and non-standard beam propagation was estimated by using the coefficient between accumulated reflectivity ($Z_H$) and differences of differential phase shift (${\Phi}_{DP}$) along radial direction. The proposed method was applied to operational S-band dual-polarization radar at Jindo and its performance was compared with those of simulation method and self-consistency method for six rainfall cases. When the accumulated reflectivity and increment of ${\Phi}_{DP}$ along radial direction are too small, the self-consistency method has failed to correct the reflectivity while the combined method has corrected the reflectivity bias reasonably. The correction based on beam simulation showed the underestimation. For evaluation of rainfall estimation, the FBs (FRMSEs) of simulation method and self-consistency principle were -0.32 (0.59) and -0.30 (0.57), respectively. The proposed method showed the lowest FB (-0.24) and FRMSE (0.50). The FB and FMSE were improved by about 18% and by 19% in comparison to those before correction (-0.42 and 0.70). We can conclude that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of rainfall estimation in PBB area.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.77-87
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• 2014

The radar reflectivity is significantly affected by ground clutter, beam blockage, anomalous propagation (AP), birds, insects, chaff, etc. The quality of radar reflectivity is very important in quantitative precipitation estimation. Therefore, Weather Radar Center (WRC) of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) employed two quality control algorithms: 1) Open Radar Product Generator (ORPG) and 2) fuzzy quality control algorithm to improve quality of radar reflectivity. In this study, an occurrence of AP echoes and the performance of both quality control algorithms are investigated. Consequently, AP echoes frequently occur during the spring and fall seasons. Moreover, while the ORPG QC algorithm has the merit of removing non-precipitation echoes, such as AP echoes, it also removes weak rain echoes and snow echoes. In contrast, the fuzzy QC algorithm has the advantage of preserving snow echoes and weak rain echoes, but it eliminates the partial area of the contaminated echo, including the AP echoes.