POLARRIS
Submitter:
Rutledge, Steven A — Colorado State University
Matsui, Toshihisa — Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at University of Maryland
Area of research:
Cloud Processes
Journal Reference:
Science
A state-of-the-art polarimetric radar simulator and retrieval package, POLARRIS, is developed to bridge numerical storm simulations and radar observations.
Impact
POLARRIS allows more meteorological scientists to analyze performance of a weather model using polarimetric radar observations. Radar scientists, on the other hand, can use POLARRIS to learn algorithm performance using weather model outputs.
Summary
POLARRIS is composed of forward and inverse models to simulate polarimetric radar observables and radar retrievals. This study demonstrates the basic ability of POLARRIS over ARM's Southern Great Plains site using computational storm simulations and DOE polarimetric radar observations. We found large uncertainties in ice particle shape and orientation assumptions to better predict radar signals. Using POLARRIS and DOE radar observations, more robust estimation of these assumptions must be investigated in future study.
