Processing of dual-orthogonal cw polarimetric radar signals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Babur, G.

2009-01-01

The thesis consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to the theory of dual-orthogonal polarimetric radar signals with continuous waveforms. The thesis presents a comparison of the signal compression techniques, namely correlation and de-ramping methods, for the dual-orthogonal sophisticated

Maritime target and sea clutter measurements with a coherent Doppler polarimetric surveillance radar

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smith, A.J.E.; Gelsema, S.J.; Kester, L.J.H.M.; Melief, H.W.; Premel Cabic, G.; Theil, A.; Woudenberg, E.

2002-01-01

Doppler polarimetry in a surveillance radar for the maritime surface picture is considered. This radar must be able to detect low-RCS targets in littoral environments. Measurements on such targets have been conducted with a coherent polarimetric measurement radar in March 2001 and preliminary

A simple biota removal algorithm for 35 GHz cloud radar measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Kalapureddy, Madhu Chandra R.; Sukanya, Patra; Das, Subrata K.; Deshpande, Sachin M.; Pandithurai, Govindan; Pazamany, Andrew L.; Ambuj K., Jha; Chakravarty, Kaustav; Kalekar, Prasad; Krishna Devisetty, Hari; Annam, Sreenivas

2018-03-01

Cloud radar reflectivity profiles can be an important measurement for the investigation of cloud vertical structure (CVS). However, extracting intended meteorological cloud content from the measurement often demands an effective technique or algorithm that can reduce error and observational uncertainties in the recorded data. In this work, a technique is proposed to identify and separate cloud and non-hydrometeor echoes using the radar Doppler spectral moments profile measurements. The point and volume target-based theoretical radar sensitivity curves are used for removing the receiver noise floor and identified radar echoes are scrutinized according to the signal decorrelation period. Here, it is hypothesized that cloud echoes are observed to be temporally more coherent and homogenous and have a longer correlation period than biota. That can be checked statistically using ˜ 4 s sliding mean and standard deviation value of reflectivity profiles. The above step helps in screen out clouds critically by filtering out the biota. The final important step strives for the retrieval of cloud height. The proposed algorithm potentially identifies cloud height solely through the systematic characterization of Z variability using the local atmospheric vertical structure knowledge besides to the theoretical, statistical and echo tracing tools. Thus, characterization of high-resolution cloud radar reflectivity profile measurements has been done with the theoretical echo sensitivity curves and observed echo statistics for the true cloud height tracking (TEST). TEST showed superior performance in screening out clouds and filtering out isolated insects. TEST constrained with polarimetric measurements was found to be more promising under high-density biota whereas TEST combined with linear depolarization ratio and spectral width perform potentially to filter out biota within the highly turbulent shallow cumulus clouds in the convective boundary layer (CBL). This TEST technique is

Detection of buried pipes by polarimetric borehole radar; Polarimetric borehole radar ni yoru maisetsukan no kenshutsu jikken

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sato, M.; Niitsuma, H. [Tohoku University, Sendai (Japan); Nakauchi, T. [Osaka Gas Co. Ltd., Osaka (Japan)

1997-05-27

If the borehole radar is utilized for detection of buried pipes, the underground radar measurement becomes possible even in the situation where the mesurement on the earth surface is difficult, for example, such a place as under the road where there is much traffic. However, since buried pipes are horizontally installed and the existing borehole radar can send/receive only vertical polarization, the measurement conducted comes to be poor in efficiency from a viewpoint of the polarization utilization. Therefore, by introducing the polarimetric borehole radar to the detection of buried pipes, a basic experiment was conducted for the effective detection of horizontal buried pipes. Proposing the use of a slot antenna which can send/receive horizontal polarization in borehole in addition to a dipole antenna which sends/receives vertical polarization, developed was a step frequency type continuous wave radar of a network analyzer basis. As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that reflection from buried pipes is largely dependent on polarization. Especially, it was found that in the slot dipole cross polarization mesurement, reflection from buried pipes can be emphasized. 4 refs., 5 figs.

POLCAL - POLARIMETRIC RADAR CALIBRATION

Science.gov (United States)

Vanzyl, J.

1994-01-01

Calibration of polarimetric radar systems is a field of research in which great progress has been made over the last few years. POLCAL (Polarimetric Radar Calibration) is a software tool intended to assist in the calibration of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems. In particular, POLCAL calibrates Stokes matrix format data produced as the standard product by the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) airborne imaging synthetic aperture radar (AIRSAR). POLCAL was designed to be used in conjunction with data collected by the NASA/JPL AIRSAR system. AIRSAR is a multifrequency (6 cm, 24 cm, and 68 cm wavelength), fully polarimetric SAR system which produces 12 x 12 km imagery at 10 m resolution. AIRSTAR was designed as a testbed for NASA's Spaceborne Imaging Radar program. While the images produced after 1991 are thought to be calibrated (phase calibrated, cross-talk removed, channel imbalance removed, and absolutely calibrated), POLCAL can and should still be used to check the accuracy of the calibration and to correct it if necessary. Version 4.0 of POLCAL is an upgrade of POLCAL version 2.0 released to AIRSAR investigators in June, 1990. New options in version 4.0 include automatic absolute calibration of 89/90 data, distributed target analysis, calibration of nearby scenes with calibration parameters from a scene with corner reflectors, altitude or roll angle corrections, and calibration of errors introduced by known topography. Many sources of error can lead to false conclusions about the nature of scatterers on the surface. Errors in the phase relationship between polarization channels result in incorrect synthesis of polarization states. Cross-talk, caused by imperfections in the radar antenna itself, can also lead to error. POLCAL reduces cross-talk and corrects phase calibration without the use of ground calibration equipment. Removing the antenna patterns during SAR processing also forms a very important part of the calibration of SAR data. Errors in the

An icon-based synoptic visualization of fully polarimetric radar data

OpenAIRE

Woodhouse, I.H.; Turner, Dean

2012-01-01

The visualization of fully polarimetric radar data is hindered by traditional remote sensing methodologies for displaying data due to the large number of parameters per pixel in such data, and the non-scalar nature of variables such as phase difference. In this paper, a new method is described that uses icons instead of image pixels to represent the image data so that polarimetric properties and geographic context can be visualized together. The icons are parameterized using the alpha-entropy...

Contribution of multitemporal polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data for monitoring winter wheat and rapeseed crops

Science.gov (United States)

Betbeder, Julie; Fieuzal, Remy; Philippets, Yannick; Ferro-Famil, Laurent; Baup, Frederic

2016-04-01

This paper aims to evaluate the contribution of multitemporal polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data for winter wheat and rapeseed crops parameters [height, leaf area index, and dry biomass (DB)] estimation, during their whole vegetation cycles in comparison to backscattering coefficients and optical data. Angular sensitivities and dynamics of polarimetric indicators were also analyzed following the growth stages of these two common crop types using, in total, 14 radar images (Radarsat-2), 16 optical images (Formosat-2, Spot-4/5), and numerous ground data. The results of this study show the importance of correcting the angular effect on SAR signals especially for copolarized signals and polarimetric indicators associated to single-bounce scattering mechanisms. The analysis of the temporal dynamic of polarimetric indicators has shown their high potential to detect crop growth changes. Moreover, this study shows the high interest of using SAR parameters (backscattering coefficients and polarimetric indicators) for crop parameters estimation during the whole vegetation cycle instead of optical vegetation index. They particularly revealed their high potential for rapeseed height and DB monitoring [i.e., Shannon entropy polarimetry (r2=0.70) and radar vegetation index (r2=0.80), respectively].

Construction of Polarimetric Radar-Based Reference Rain Maps for the Iowa Flood Studies Campaign

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Walt; Krajewski, Witek; Wolff, David; Gatlin, Patrick

2015-04-01

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Iowa Flood Studies (IFloodS) campaign was conducted in central and northeastern Iowa during the months of April-June, 2013. Specific science objectives for IFloodS included quantification of uncertainties in satellite and ground-based estimates of precipitation, 4-D characterization of precipitation physical processes and associated parameters (e.g., size distributions, water contents, types, structure etc.), assessment of the impact of precipitation estimation uncertainty and physical processes on hydrologic predictive skill, and refinement of field observations and data analysis approaches as they pertain to future GPM integrated hydrologic validation and related field studies. In addition to field campaign archival of raw and processed satellite data (including precipitation products), key ground-based platforms such as the NASA NPOL S-band and D3R Ka/Ku-band dual-polarimetric radars, University of Iowa X-band dual-polarimetric radars, a large network of paired rain gauge platforms, and a large network of 2D Video and Parsivel disdrometers were deployed. In something of a canonical approach, the radar (NPOL in particular), gauge and disdrometer observational assets were deployed to create a consistent high-quality distributed (time and space sampling) radar-based ground "reference" rainfall dataset, with known uncertainties, that could be used for assessing the satellite-based precipitation products at a range of space/time scales. Subsequently, the impact of uncertainties in the satellite products could be evaluated relative to the ground-benchmark in coupled weather, land-surface and distributed hydrologic modeling frameworks as related to flood prediction. Relative to establishing the ground-based "benchmark", numerous avenues were pursued in the making and verification of IFloodS "reference" dual-polarimetric radar-based rain maps, and this study documents the process and results as they pertain specifically

Construction of Polarimetric Radar-Based Reference Rain Maps for the Iowa Flood Studies Campaign

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Walter; Wolff, David; Krajewski, Witek; Gatlin, Patrick

2015-01-01

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Iowa Flood Studies (IFloodS) campaign was conducted in central and northeastern Iowa during the months of April-June, 2013. Specific science objectives for IFloodS included quantification of uncertainties in satellite and ground-based estimates of precipitation, 4-D characterization of precipitation physical processes and associated parameters (e.g., size distributions, water contents, types, structure etc.), assessment of the impact of precipitation estimation uncertainty and physical processes on hydrologic predictive skill, and refinement of field observations and data analysis approaches as they pertain to future GPM integrated hydrologic validation and related field studies. In addition to field campaign archival of raw and processed satellite data (including precipitation products), key ground-based platforms such as the NASA NPOL S-band and D3R Ka/Ku-band dual-polarimetric radars, University of Iowa X-band dual-polarimetric radars, a large network of paired rain gauge platforms, and a large network of 2D Video and Parsivel disdrometers were deployed. In something of a canonical approach, the radar (NPOL in particular), gauge and disdrometer observational assets were deployed to create a consistent high-quality distributed (time and space sampling) radar-based ground "reference" rainfall dataset, with known uncertainties, that could be used for assessing the satellite-based precipitation products at a range of space/time scales. Subsequently, the impact of uncertainties in the satellite products could be evaluated relative to the ground-benchmark in coupled weather, land-surface and distributed hydrologic modeling frameworks as related to flood prediction. Relative to establishing the ground-based "benchmark", numerous avenues were pursued in the making and verification of IFloodS "reference" dual-polarimetric radar-based rain maps, and this study documents the process and results as they pertain specifically

Laboratory polarization and permittivity measurements to interpret dust polarimetric observations and in-situ radar studies. Significance for Rosetta mission at 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Science.gov (United States)

Levasseur-Regourd, Anny-Chantal; Brouet, Yann; Hadamcik, Edith; Heggy, Essam; Hines, Dean; Lasue, Jérémie; Renard, Jean-Baptiste

2015-08-01

Polarimetric astronomical observations on dust clouds and regolithic surfaces require laboratory simulations on samples to provide information on properties (size distribution, porosity, refractive index) of the scattering media. Similarly, in-situ radar investigations in the solar system require laboratory studies on samples to infer physical properties (e.g. porosity, ice/dust ratio) of sub-surfaces and interiors. Recent developments are illustrated with present studies related to the Rosetta mission, which begun its rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimeko (C-G) and landed the Philae module on its nucleus in 2014.We will summarize laboratory simulations with the PROGRA2 suite of instruments that study (in the visible to near IR domain) the polarimetric properties of dust samples in microgravity conditions or on surfaces [1], with emphasis on the interpretation of polarimetric observations of C-G, during its previous perihelion passages from Earth observatories, and currently from HST [2,3]. The presence of large dust particles in the pre-perihelion coma previously inferred from remote observations agrees with Rosetta ground truth [4]. We will also present measurements on the permittivity (in the millimeter to meter domain) of various dust samples, with emphasis on porous samples [5,6]. Results provide constraints on the properties of the subsurface and interior of C-G, as explored by MIRO on Rosetta and CONSERT on Philae.Such studies are relevant for the interpretation of polarimetric observations of other dust clouds (e.g. debris disks, interplanetary dust cloud, clouds in planetary atmospheres) and surfaces (e.g. planets, moons), as well as for those of other radar characterization studies (e.g. Mars, moons, asteroids).[1] Levasseur-Regourd et al. In Polarization of stars and planetary systems, Cambridge UP, in press 2015.[2] Hadamcik et al. A&A 517 2010.[3] Hines and Levasseur-Regourd, PSS submitted 2015.[4] Schulz et al. Nature 518 2015.[5] Heggy et al

A Wing Pod-based Millimeter Wave Cloud Radar on HIAPER

Science.gov (United States)

Vivekanandan, Jothiram; Tsai, Peisang; Ellis, Scott; Loew, Eric; Lee, Wen-Chau; Emmett, Joanthan

2014-05-01

One of the attractive features of a millimeter wave radar system is its ability to detect micron-sized particles that constitute clouds with lower than 0.1 g m-3 liquid or ice water content. Scanning or vertically-pointing ground-based millimeter wavelength radars are used to study stratocumulus (Vali et al. 1998; Kollias and Albrecht 2000) and fair-weather cumulus (Kollias et al. 2001). Airborne millimeter wavelength radars have been used for atmospheric remote sensing since the early 1990s (Pazmany et al. 1995). Airborne millimeter wavelength radar systems, such as the University of Wyoming King Air Cloud Radar (WCR) and the NASA ER-2 Cloud Radar System (CRS), have added mobility to observe clouds in remote regions and over oceans. Scientific requirements of millimeter wavelength radar are mainly driven by climate and cloud initiation studies. Survey results from the cloud radar user community indicated a common preference for a narrow beam W-band radar with polarimetric and Doppler capabilities for airborne remote sensing of clouds. For detecting small amounts of liquid and ice, it is desired to have -30 dBZ sensitivity at a 10 km range. Additional desired capabilities included a second wavelength and/or dual-Doppler winds. Modern radar technology offers various options (e.g., dual-polarization and dual-wavelength). Even though a basic fixed beam Doppler radar system with a sensitivity of -30 dBZ at 10 km is capable of satisfying cloud detection requirements, the above-mentioned additional options, namely dual-wavelength, and dual-polarization, significantly extend the measurement capabilities to further reduce any uncertainty in radar-based retrievals of cloud properties. This paper describes a novel, airborne pod-based millimeter wave radar, preliminary radar measurements and corresponding derived scientific products. Since some of the primary engineering requirements of this millimeter wave radar are that it should be deployable on an airborne platform

Identification of hydrometeor mixtures in polarimetric radar measurements and their linear de-mixing

Science.gov (United States)

Besic, Nikola; Ventura, Jordi Figueras i.; Grazioli, Jacopo; Gabella, Marco; Germann, Urs; Berne, Alexis

2017-04-01

The issue of hydrometeor mixtures affects radar sampling volumes without a clear dominant hydrometeor type. Containing a number of different hydrometeor types which significantly contribute to the polarimetric variables, these volumes are likely to occur in the vicinity of the melting layer and mainly, at large distance from a given radar. Motivated by potential benefits for both quantitative and qualitative applications of dual-pol radar, we propose a method for the identification of hydrometeor mixtures and their subsequent linear de-mixing. This method is intrinsically related to our recently proposed semi-supervised approach for hydrometeor classification. The mentioned classification approach [1] performs labeling of radar sampling volumes by using as a criterion the Euclidean distance with respect to five-dimensional centroids, depicting nine hydrometeor classes. The positions of the centroids in the space formed by four radar moments and one external parameter (phase indicator), are derived through a technique of k-medoids clustering, applied on a selected representative set of radar observations, and coupled with statistical testing which introduces the assumed microphysical properties of the different hydrometeor types. Aside from a hydrometeor type label, each radar sampling volume is characterized by an entropy estimate, indicating the uncertainty of the classification. Here, we revisit the concept of entropy presented in [1], in order to emphasize its presumed potential for the identification of hydrometeor mixtures. The calculation of entropy is based on the estimate of the probability (pi ) that the observation corresponds to the hydrometeor type i (i = 1,ṡṡṡ9) . The probability is derived from the Euclidean distance (di ) of the observation to the centroid characterizing the hydrometeor type i . The parametrization of the d → p transform is conducted in a controlled environment, using synthetic polarimetric radar datasets. It ensures balanced

Polarimetric Radar Retrievals in Southeast Texas During Hurricane Harvey

Science.gov (United States)

Wolff, D. B.; Petersen, W. A.; Tokay, A.; Marks, D. A.; Pippitt, J. L.; Kirstetter, P. E.

2017-12-01

Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast as a major hurricane on August 25, 2017 before exiting the state as a tropical storm on September 1, 2017. In its wake, it left a flood of historic proportions, with some areas measuring 60 inches of rain over a five-day period. Although the storm center stayed west of the immediate Houston area training bands of precipitation impacted the Houston area for five full days. The National Weather Service (NWS) WSR88D dual-polarimetric radar (KHGX), located southeast of Houston, maintained operations for the entirety of the event. The Harris County Flood Warning System (HCFWS) had 150 rain gauges deployed in its network and seven NWS Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) rain gauges are also located in the area. In this study, we used the full radar data set to retrieve daily and event-total precipitation estimates within 120 km of the KHGX radar for the period August 25-29, 2017. These estimates were then compared to the HCFWS and ASOS gauges. Three different polarimetric hybrid rainfall retrievals were used: Ciffeli et al. 2011; Bringi et al. 2004; and, Chen et al. 2017. Each of these hybrid retrievals have demonstrated robust performance in the past. However, both daily and event-total comparisons from each of these retrievals compared to those of HCFWS and ASOS rain gauge networks resulted in significant underestimates by the radar retrievals. These radar underestimates are concerning. Sources of error and variance will be investigated to understand the source of radar-gauge disagreement. One current hypothesis is that due to the large number of small drops often found in hurricanes, the differential reflectivity and specific differential phase are relatively small so that the hybrid algorithms use only the reflectivity/rain rate procedure (so called Z-R relationships), and hence rarely invoke the ZDR or KDP procedures. Thus, an alternative Z-R relationship must be invoked to retrieve accurate rain rate estimates.

A study of cloud microphysics and precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau by radar observations and cloud-resolving model simulations: Cloud Microphysics over Tibetan Plateau

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gao, Wenhua [State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing China; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland Washington USA; Sui, Chung-Hsiung [Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei Taiwan; Fan, Jiwen [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland Washington USA; Hu, Zhiqun [State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing China; Zhong, Lingzhi [State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing China

2016-11-27

Cloud microphysical properties and precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are unique because of the high terrains, clean atmosphere, and sufficient water vapor. With dual-polarization precipitation radar and cloud radar measurements during the Third Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Scientific Experiment (TIPEX-III), the simulated microphysics and precipitation by the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) with the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS) microphysics and other microphysical schemes are investigated through a typical plateau rainfall event on 22 July 2014. Results show that the WRF-CAMS simulation reasonably reproduces the spatial distribution of 24-h accumulated precipitation, but has limitations in simulating time evolution of precipitation rates. The model-calculated polarimetric radar variables have biases as well, suggesting bias in modeled hydrometeor types. The raindrop sizes in convective region are larger than those in stratiform region indicated by the small intercept of raindrop size distribution in the former. The sensitivity experiments show that precipitation processes are sensitive to the changes of warm rain processes in condensation and nucleated droplet size (but less sensitive to evaporation process). Increasing droplet condensation produces the best area-averaged rain rate during weak convection period compared with the observation, suggesting a considerable bias in thermodynamics in the baseline simulation. Increasing the initial cloud droplet size causes the rain rate reduced by half, an opposite effect to that of increasing droplet condensation.

Statistical Analysis of the Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test (POLCAST) Field Projects

Science.gov (United States)

Ekness, Jamie Lynn

The North Dakota farming industry brings in more than $4.1 billion annually in cash receipts. Unfortunately, agriculture sales vary significantly from year to year, which is due in large part to weather events such as hail storms and droughts. One method to mitigate drought is to use hygroscopic seeding to increase the precipitation efficiency of clouds. The North Dakota Atmospheric Research Board (NDARB) sponsored the Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test (POLCAST) research project to determine the effectiveness of hygroscopic seeding in North Dakota. The POLCAST field projects obtained airborne and radar observations, while conducting randomized cloud seeding. The Thunderstorm Identification Tracking and Nowcasting (TITAN) program is used to analyze radar data (33 usable cases) in determining differences in the duration of the storm, rain rate and total rain amount between seeded and non-seeded clouds. The single ratio of seeded to non-seeded cases is 1.56 (0.28 mm/0.18 mm) or 56% increase for the average hourly rainfall during the first 60 minutes after target selection. A seeding effect is indicated with the lifetime of the storms increasing by 41 % between seeded and non-seeded clouds for the first 60 minutes past seeding decision. A double ratio statistic, a comparison of radar derived rain amount of the last 40 minutes of a case (seed/non-seed), compared to the first 20 minutes (seed/non-seed), is used to account for the natural variability of the cloud system and gives a double ratio of 1.85. The Mann-Whitney test on the double ratio of seeded to non-seeded cases (33 cases) gives a significance (p-value) of 0.063. Bootstrapping analysis of the POLCAST set indicates that 50 cases would provide statistically significant results based on the Mann-Whitney test of the double ratio. All the statistical analysis conducted on the POLCAST data set show that hygroscopic seeding in North Dakota does increase precipitation. While an additional POLCAST field

Full polarimetric millimetre wave radar for stand-off security screening

Science.gov (United States)

Blackhurst, Eddie; Salmon, Neil; Southgate, Matthew

2017-10-01

The development and measurements are described of a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) mono-static millimetre wave full polarimetric radar, operating at k-band (18 to 26 GHz). The system has been designed to explore the feasibility of using full polarimetry for the detection of concealed weapons, and person borne improvised explosive devices (PBIED). The philosophy of this scheme is a means to extract the maximum information content from a target which is normally in the single spatial pixel (sometimes sub-pixel) configuration in stand-off (tens of metres) and crowd surveillance scenarios. The radar comprises a vector network analyser (VNA), an orthomode transducer and a conical horn antenna. A calibration strategy is discussed and demonstrated using a variety of known calibration targets with known reflective properties, including a flat metal plate, dihedral reflector, metal sphere, helix and dipole. The orthomode transducer is based on a high performance linear polarizer of the turnstile type with isolation better than - 35dB between orthogonal polarisations. The calibration enables the polarimetric Sinclair scattering matrix to be measured at each frequency for coherent polarimetry, and this can be extended using multiple measurements via the Kennaugh matrix to investigate incoherent full polarimetry.

GPM GROUND VALIDATION NASA S-BAND DUAL POLARIMETRIC (NPOL) DOPPLER RADAR IFLOODS V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The GPM Ground Validation NASA S-Band Dual Polarimetric (NPOL) Doppler Radar IFloodS data set was collected from April 30, 2013 to June 16, 2013 near Traer, Iowa as...

Airborn Ku-band polarimetric radar remote sensing of terrestrial snow cover

Science.gov (United States)

Simon H. Yueh; Steve J. Dinardo; Ahmed Akgiray; Richard West; Donald W. Cline; Kelly Elder

2009-01-01

Characteristics of the Ku-band polarimetric scatterometer (POLSCAT) data acquired from five sets of aircraft flights in the winter months of 2006-2008 for the second Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX-II) in Colorado are described in this paper. The data showed the response of the Ku-band radar echoes to snowpack changes for various types of background vegetation in...

A case study on large-scale dynamical influence on bright band using cloud radar during the Indian summer monsoon

Science.gov (United States)

Jha, Ambuj K.; Kalapureddy, M. C. R.; Devisetty, Hari Krishna; Deshpande, Sachin M.; Pandithurai, G.

2018-02-01

The present study is a first of its kind attempt in exploring the physical features (e.g., height, width, intensity, duration) of tropical Indian bright band using a Ka-band cloud radar under the influence of large-scale cyclonic circulation and attempts to explain the abrupt changes in bright band features, viz., rise in the bright band height by 430 m and deepening of the bright band by about 300 m observed at around 14:00 UTC on Sep 14, 2016, synoptically as well as locally. The study extends the utility of cloud radar to understand how the bright band features are associated with light precipitation, ranging from 0 to 1.5 mm/h. Our analysis of the precipitation event of Sep 14-15, 2016 shows that the bright band above (below) 3.7 km, thickness less (more) than 300 m can potentially lead to light drizzle of 0-0.25 mm/h (drizzle/light rain) at the surface. It is also seen that the cloud radar may be suitable for bright band study within light drizzle limits than under higher rain conditions. Further, the study illustrates that the bright band features can be determined using the polarimetric capability of the cloud radar. It is shown that an LDR value of - 22 dB can be associated with the top height of bright band in the Ka-band observations which is useful in the extraction of the bright band top height and its width. This study is useful for understanding the bright band phenomenon and could be potentially useful in establishing the bright band-surface rain relationship through the perspective of a cloud radar, which would be helpful to enhance the cloud radar-based quantitative estimates of precipitation.

Application of Deep Networks to Oil Spill Detection Using Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Images

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guandong Chen

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR remote sensing provides an outstanding tool in oil spill detection and classification, for its advantages in distinguishing mineral oil and biogenic lookalikes. Various features can be extracted from polarimetric SAR data. The large number and correlated nature of polarimetric SAR features make the selection and optimization of these features impact on the performance of oil spill classification algorithms. In this paper, deep learning algorithms such as the stacked autoencoder (SAE and deep belief network (DBN are applied to optimize the polarimetric feature sets and reduce the feature dimension through layer-wise unsupervised pre-training. An experiment was conducted on RADARSAT-2 quad-polarimetric SAR image acquired during the Norwegian oil-on-water exercise of 2011, in which verified mineral, emulsions, and biogenic slicks were analyzed. The results show that oil spill classification achieved by deep networks outperformed both support vector machine (SVM and traditional artificial neural networks (ANN with similar parameter settings, especially when the number of training data samples is limited.

Classification and correction of the radar bright band with polarimetric radar

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Will; Rico-Ramirez, Miguel; Kramer, Stefan

2015-04-01

The annular region of enhanced radar reflectivity, known as the Bright Band (BB), occurs when the radar beam intersects a layer of melting hydrometeors. Radar reflectivity is related to rainfall through a power law equation and so this enhanced region can lead to overestimations of rainfall by a factor of up to 5, so it is important to correct for this. The BB region can be identified by using several techniques including hydrometeor classification and freezing level forecasts from mesoscale meteorological models. Advances in dual-polarisation radar measurements and continued research in the field has led to increased accuracy in the ability to identify the melting snow region. A method proposed by Kitchen et al (1994), a form of which is currently used operationally in the UK, utilises idealised Vertical Profiles of Reflectivity (VPR) to correct for the BB enhancement. A simpler and more computationally efficient method involves the formation of an average VPR from multiple elevations for correction that can still cause a significant decrease in error (Vignal 2000). The purpose of this research is to evaluate a method that relies only on analysis of measurements from an operational C-band polarimetric radar without the need for computationally expensive models. Initial results show that LDR is a strong classifier of melting snow with a high Critical Success Index of 97% when compared to the other variables. An algorithm based on idealised VPRs resulted in the largest decrease in error when BB corrected scans are compared to rain gauges and to lower level scans with a reduction in RMSE of 61% for rain-rate measurements. References Kitchen, M., R. Brown, and A. G. Davies, 1994: Real-time correction of weather radar data for the effects of bright band, range and orographic growth in widespread precipitation. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., 120, 1231-1254. Vignal, B. et al, 2000: Three methods to determine profiles of reflectivity from volumetric radar data to correct

Coupled Retrieval of Liquid Water Cloud and Above-Cloud Aerosol Properties Using the Airborne Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (AirMSPI)

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Feng; van Harten, Gerard; Diner, David J.; Davis, Anthony B.; Seidel, Felix C.; Rheingans, Brian; Tosca, Mika; Alexandrov, Mikhail D.; Cairns, Brian; Ferrare, Richard A.; Burton, Sharon P.; Fenn, Marta A.; Hostetler, Chris A.; Wood, Robert; Redemann, Jens

2018-03-01

An optimization algorithm is developed to retrieve liquid water cloud properties including cloud optical depth (COD), droplet size distribution and cloud top height (CTH), and above-cloud aerosol properties including aerosol optical depth (AOD), single-scattering albedo, and microphysical properties from sweep-mode observations by Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Airborne Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (AirMSPI) instrument. The retrieval is composed of three major steps: (1) initial estimate of the mean droplet size distribution across the entire image of 80-100 km along track by 10-25 km across track from polarimetric cloudbow observations, (2) coupled retrieval of image-scale cloud and above-cloud aerosol properties by fitting the polarimetric data at all observation angles, and (3) iterative retrieval of 1-D radiative transfer-based COD and droplet size distribution at pixel scale (25 m) by establishing relationships between COD and droplet size and fitting the total radiance measurements. Our retrieval is tested using 134 AirMSPI data sets acquired during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) field campaign ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS. The retrieved above-cloud AOD and CTH are compared to coincident HSRL-2 (HSRL-2, NASA Langley Research Center) data, and COD and droplet size distribution parameters (effective radius reff and effective variance veff) are compared to coincident Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) data. Mean absolute differences between AirMSPI and HSRL-2 retrievals of above-cloud AOD at 532 nm and CTH are 0.03 and mean absolute differences between RSP and AirMSPI retrievals of COD, reff, and veff in the cloudbow area are 2.33, 0.69 μm, and 0.020, respectively. Neglect of smoke aerosols above cloud leads to an underestimate of image-averaged COD by 15%.

Values of Deploying a Compact Polarimetric Radar to Monitor Extreme Precipitation in a Mountainous Area: Mineral County, Colorado

Science.gov (United States)

Cheong, B. L.; Kirstetter, P. E.; Yu, T. Y.; Busto, J.; Speeze, T.; Dennis, J.

2015-12-01

Precipitation in mountainous regions can trigger flash floods and landslides especially in areas affected by wildfire. Because of the small space-time scales required for observation, they remain poorly observed. A light-weighted X-band polarimetric radar can rapidly respond to the situation and provide continuous rainfall information with high resolution for flood forecast and emergency management. A preliminary assessment of added values to the operational practice in Mineral county, Colorado was performed in Fall 2014 and Summer 2015 with a transportable polarimetric radar deployed at the Lobo Overlook. This region is one of the numerous areas in the Rocky Mountains where the WSR-88D network does not provide sufficient weather coverage due to blockages, and the limitations have impeded forecasters and local emergency managers from making accurate predictions and issuing weather warnings. High resolution observations were collected to document the precipitation characteristics and demonstrate the added values of deploying a small weather radar in such context. The analysis of the detailed vertical structure of precipitation explain the decreased signal sampled by the operational radars. The specific microphysics analyzed though polarimetry suggest that the operational Z-R relationships may not be appropriate to monitor severe weather over this wildfire affected region. Collaboration with the local emergency managers and the National Weather Service shows the critical value of deploying mobile, polarimetric and unmanned radars in complex terrain. Several selected cases are provided in this paper for illustration.

Core Facility of the Juelich Observatory for Cloud Evolution (JOYCE - CF)

Science.gov (United States)

Beer, J.; Troemel, S.

2017-12-01

A multiple and holistic multi-sensor monitoring of clouds and precipitation processes is a challenging but promising task in the meteorological community. Instrument synergies offer detailed views in microphysical and dynamical developments of clouds. Since 2017 The the Juelich Observatory for Cloud Evolution (JOYCE) is transformed into a Core Facility (JOYCE - CF). JOYCE - CF offers multiple long-term remote sensing observations of the atmosphere, develops an easy access to all observations and invites scientists word wide to exploit the existing data base for their research but also to complement JOYCE-CF with additional long-term or campaign instrumentation. The major instrumentation contains a twin set of two polarimetric X-band radars, a microwave profiler, two cloud radars, an infrared spectrometer, a Doppler lidar and two ceilometers. JOYCE - CF offers easy and open access to database and high quality calibrated observations of all instruments. E.g. the two polarimetric X-band radars which are located in 50 km distance are calibrated using the self-consistency method, frequently repeated vertical pointing measurements as well as instrument synergy with co-located micro-rain radar and distrometer measurements. The presentation gives insights into calibration procedures, the standardized operation procedures and recent synergistic research exploiting our radars operating at three different frequencies.

Toward Exploring the Synergy Between Cloud Radar Polarimetry and Doppler Spectral Analysis in Deep Cold Precipitating Systems in the Arctic

Science.gov (United States)

Oue, Mariko; Kollias, Pavlos; Ryzhkov, Alexander; Luke, Edward P.

2018-03-01

The study of Arctic ice and mixed-phase clouds, which are characterized by a variety of ice particle types in the same cloudy volume, is challenging research. This study illustrates a new approach to qualitative and quantitative analysis of the complexity of ice and mixed-phase microphysical processes in Arctic deep precipitating systems using the combination of Ka-band zenith-pointing radar Doppler spectra and quasi-vertical profiles of polarimetric radar variables measured by a Ka/W-band scanning radar. The results illustrate the frequent occurrence of multimodal Doppler spectra in the dendritic/planar growth layer, where locally generated, slower-falling particle populations are well separated from faster-falling populations in terms of Doppler velocity. The slower-falling particle populations contribute to an increase of differential reflectivity (ZDR), while an enhanced specific differential phase (KDP) in this dendritic growth temperature range is caused by both the slower and faster-falling particle populations. Another area with frequent occurrence of multimodal Doppler spectra is in mixed-phase layers, where both populations produce ZDR and KDP values close to 0, suggesting the occurrence of a riming process. Joint analysis of the Doppler spectra and the polarimetric radar variables provides important insight into the microphysics of snow formation and allows the separation of the contributions of ice of different habits to the values of reflectivity and ZDR.

An improved hydrometeor detection method for millimeter-wavelength cloud radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Ge

2017-07-01

Full Text Available A modified method with a new noise reduction scheme that can reduce the noise distribution to a narrow range is proposed to distinguish clouds and other hydrometeors from noise and recognize more features with weak signal in cloud radar observations. A spatial filter with central weighting, which is widely used in cloud radar hydrometeor detection algorithms, is also applied in our method to examine radar return for significant levels of signals. Square clouds were constructed to test our algorithm and the method used for the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurements Program millimeter-wavelength cloud radar. We also applied both the methods to 6 months of cloud radar observations at the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University and compared the results. It was found that our method has significant advantages in reducing the rates of both failed negative and false positive hydrometeor identifications in simulated clouds and recognizing clouds with weak signal from our cloud radar observations.

Sensitivity of C-Band Polarimetric Radar-Based Drop Size Distribution Measurements to Maximum Diameter Assumptions

Science.gov (United States)

Carey, Lawrence D.; Petersen, Walter A.

2011-01-01

The estimation of rain drop size distribution (DSD) parameters from polarimetric radar observations is accomplished by first establishing a relationship between differential reflectivity (Z(sub dr)) and the central tendency of the rain DSD such as the median volume diameter (D0). Since Z(sub dr) does not provide a direct measurement of DSD central tendency, the relationship is typically derived empirically from rain drop and radar scattering models (e.g., D0 = F[Z (sub dr)] ). Past studies have explored the general sensitivity of these models to temperature, radar wavelength, the drop shape vs. size relation, and DSD variability. Much progress has been made in recent years in measuring the drop shape and DSD variability using surface-based disdrometers, such as the 2D Video disdrometer (2DVD), and documenting their impact on polarimetric radar techniques. In addition to measuring drop shape, another advantage of the 2DVD over earlier impact type disdrometers is its ability to resolve drop diameters in excess of 5 mm. Despite this improvement, the sampling limitations of a disdrometer, including the 2DVD, make it very difficult to adequately measure the maximum drop diameter (D(sub max)) present in a typical radar resolution volume. As a result, D(sub max) must still be assumed in the drop and radar models from which D0 = F[Z(sub dr)] is derived. Since scattering resonance at C-band wavelengths begins to occur in drop diameters larger than about 5 mm, modeled C-band radar parameters, particularly Z(sub dr), can be sensitive to D(sub max) assumptions. In past C-band radar studies, a variety of D(sub max) assumptions have been made, including the actual disdrometer estimate of D(sub max) during a typical sampling period (e.g., 1-3 minutes), D(sub max) = C (where C is constant at values from 5 to 8 mm), and D(sub max) = M*D0 (where the constant multiple, M, is fixed at values ranging from 2.5 to 3.5). The overall objective of this NASA Global Precipitation Measurement

Rainfall Estimation Using Specific Differential Phase for the First Operational Polarimetric Radar in Korea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheol-Hwan You

2014-01-01

Full Text Available To assess the performance of rainfall estimation using specific differential phase observed by Bislsan radar, the first polarimetric radar in Korea, three rainfall cases occurring in 2011 were selected, each caused by different conditions: the first is the Changma front and typhoon, the second is only the Changma front, and the third is only a typhoon. For quantitative use of specific differential phase (KDP, a data quality algorithm was developed for differential phase shift (ΦDP, composed of two steps; the first involves removal of scattered noise and the second is unfolding of ΦDP. This order of the algorithm is necessary so as not to remove unfolded areas, which are the real meteorological target. All noise was removed and the folded ΦDP were unfolded successfully for this study. RKDP relations for S-band radar were calculated for 84,754 samples of observed drop size distribution (DSD using different drop shape assumptions. The relation for the Bringi drop shape showed the best statistics: 0.28 for normalized error, and 6.7 mm for root mean square error for rainfall heavier than 10 mm h-1. Because the drop shape assumption affects the accuracy of rainfall estimation differently for different rainfall types, such characteristics should be taken into account to estimate rainfall more accurately using polarimetric variables.

Scanning Cloud Radar Observations at Azores: Preliminary 3D Cloud Products

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kollias, P.; Johnson, K.; Jo, I.; Tatarevic, A.; Giangrande, S.; Widener, K.; Bharadwaj, N.; Mead, J.

2010-03-15

The deployment of the Scanning W-Band ARM Cloud Radar (SWACR) during the AMF campaign at Azores signals the first deployment of an ARM Facility-owned scanning cloud radar and offers a prelude for the type of 3D cloud observations that ARM will have the capability to provide at all the ARM Climate Research Facility sites by the end of 2010. The primary objective of the deployment of Scanning ARM Cloud Radars (SACRs) at the ARM Facility sites is to map continuously (operationally) the 3D structure of clouds and shallow precipitation and to provide 3D microphysical and dynamical retrievals for cloud life cycle and cloud-scale process studies. This is a challenging task, never attempted before, and requires significant research and development efforts in order to understand the radar's capabilities and limitations. At the same time, we need to look beyond the radar meteorology aspects of the challenge and ensure that the hardware and software capabilities of the new systems are utilized for the development of 3D data products that address the scientific needs of the new Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program. The SWACR observations at Azores provide a first look at such observations and the challenges associated with their analysis and interpretation. The set of scan strategies applied during the SWACR deployment and their merit is discussed. The scan strategies were adjusted for the detection of marine stratocumulus and shallow cumulus that were frequently observed at the Azores deployment. Quality control procedures for the radar reflectivity and Doppler products are presented. Finally, preliminary 3D-Active Remote Sensing of Cloud Locations (3D-ARSCL) products on a regular grid will be presented, and the challenges associated with their development discussed. In addition to data from the Azores deployment, limited data from the follow-up deployment of the SWACR at the ARM SGP site will be presented. This effort provides a blueprint for the effort required

Comparison Between CCCM and CloudSat Radar-Lidar (RL) Cloud and Radiation Products

Science.gov (United States)

Ham, Seung-Hee; Kato, Seiji; Rose, Fred G.; Sun-Mack, Sunny

2015-01-01

To enhance cloud properties, LaRC and CIRA developed each combination algorithm for obtained properties from passive, active and imager in A-satellite constellation. When comparing global cloud fraction each other, LaRC-produced CERES-CALIPSO-CloudSat-MODIS (CCCM) products larger low-level cloud fraction over tropic ocean, while CIRA-produced Radar-Lidar (RL) shows larger mid-level cloud fraction for high latitude region. The reason for different low-level cloud fraction is due to different filtering method of lidar-detected cloud layers. Meanwhile difference in mid-level clouds is occurred due to different priority of cloud boundaries from lidar and radar.

Tropical Mangrove Mapping Using Fully-Polarimetric Radar Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bambang Trisasongko

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Although mangrove is one of important ecosystems in the world, it has been abused and exploited by human for various purposes. Monitoring mangrove is therefore required to maintain a balance between economy and conservation and provides up-to-date information for rehabilitation. Optical remote sensing data have delivered such information, however ever-changing atmospheric disturbance may significantly decrease thematic content. In this research, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR fully polarimetric data were evaluated to present an alternative for mangrove mapping. Assessment using three statistical trees was performed on both tonal and textural data. It was noticeable that textural data delivered fairly good improvement which reduced the error rate to around 5-6% at L-band. This suggests that insertion of textural data is more important than any information derived from decomposition algorithm.

Object-oriented crop mapping and monitoring using multi-temporal polarimetric RADARSAT-2 data

Science.gov (United States)

Jiao, Xianfeng; Kovacs, John M.; Shang, Jiali; McNairn, Heather; Walters, Dan; Ma, Baoluo; Geng, Xiaoyuan

2014-10-01

The aim of this paper is to assess the accuracy of an object-oriented classification of polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) data to map and monitor crops using 19 RADARSAT-2 fine beam polarimetric (FQ) images of an agricultural area in North-eastern Ontario, Canada. Polarimetric images and field data were acquired during the 2011 and 2012 growing seasons. The classification and field data collection focused on the main crop types grown in the region, which include: wheat, oat, soybean, canola and forage. The polarimetric parameters were extracted with PolSAR analysis using both the Cloude-Pottier and Freeman-Durden decompositions. The object-oriented classification, with a single date of PolSAR data, was able to classify all five crop types with an accuracy of 95% and Kappa of 0.93; a 6% improvement in comparison with linear-polarization only classification. However, the time of acquisition is crucial. The larger biomass crops of canola and soybean were most accurately mapped, whereas the identification of oat and wheat were more variable. The multi-temporal data using the Cloude-Pottier decomposition parameters provided the best classification accuracy compared to the linear polarizations and the Freeman-Durden decomposition parameters. In general, the object-oriented classifications were able to accurately map crop types by reducing the noise inherent in the SAR data. Furthermore, using the crop classification maps we were able to monitor crop growth stage based on a trend analysis of the radar response. Based on field data from canola crops, there was a strong relationship between the phenological growth stage based on the BBCH scale, and the HV backscatter and entropy.

ARM Cloud Radar Simulator Package for Global Climate Models Value-Added Product

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Yuying [North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States); Xie, Shaocheng [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

2017-05-01

It has been challenging to directly compare U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility ground-based cloud radar measurements with climate model output because of limitations or features of the observing processes and the spatial gap between model and the single-point measurements. To facilitate the use of ARM radar data in numerical models, an ARM cloud radar simulator was developed to converts model data into pseudo-ARM cloud radar observations that mimic the instrument view of a narrow atmospheric column (as compared to a large global climate model [GCM] grid-cell), thus allowing meaningful comparison between model output and ARM cloud observations. The ARM cloud radar simulator value-added product (VAP) was developed based on the CloudSat simulator contained in the community satellite simulator package, the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) Observation Simulator Package (COSP) (Bodas-Salcedo et al., 2011), which has been widely used in climate model evaluation with satellite data (Klein et al., 2013, Zhang et al., 2010). The essential part of the CloudSat simulator is the QuickBeam radar simulator that is used to produce CloudSat-like radar reflectivity, but is capable of simulating reflectivity for other radars (Marchand et al., 2009; Haynes et al., 2007). Adapting QuickBeam to the ARM cloud radar simulator within COSP required two primary changes: one was to set the frequency to 35 GHz for the ARM Ka-band cloud radar, as opposed to 94 GHz used for the CloudSat W-band radar, and the second was to invert the view from the ground to space so as to attenuate the beam correctly. In addition, the ARM cloud radar simulator uses a finer vertical resolution (100 m compared to 500 m for CloudSat) to resolve the more detailed structure of clouds captured by the ARM radars. The ARM simulator has been developed following the COSP workflow (Figure 1) and using the capabilities available in COSP

Screening Mississippi River Levees Using Texture-Based and Polarimetric-Based Features from Synthetic Aperture Radar Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lalitha Dabbiru

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This article reviews the use of synthetic aperture radar remote sensing data for earthen levee mapping with an emphasis on finding the slump slides on the levees. Earthen levees built on the natural levees parallel to the river channel are designed to protect large areas of populated and cultivated land in the Unites States from flooding. One of the signs of potential impending levee failure is the appearance of slump slides. On-site inspection of levees is expensive and time-consuming; therefore, a need to develop efficient techniques based on remote sensing technologies is mandatory to prevent failures under flood loading. Analysis of multi-polarized radar data is one of the viable tools for detecting the problem areas on the levees. In this study, we develop methods to detect anomalies on the levee, such as slump slides and give levee managers new tools to prioritize their tasks. This paper presents results of applying the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR quad-polarized L-band data to detect slump slides on earthen levees. The study area encompasses a portion of levees of the lower Mississippi River in the United States. In this paper, we investigate the performance of polarimetric and texture features for efficient levee classification. Texture features derived from the gray level co-occurrence (GLCM matrix and discrete wavelet transform were computed and analyzed for efficient levee classification. The pixel-based polarimetric decomposition features, such as entropy, anisotropy, and scattering angle were also computed and applied to the support vector machine classifier to characterize the radar imagery and compared the results with texture-based classification. Our experimental results showed that inclusion of textural features derived from the SAR data using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT features and GLCM features provided

Dual-Polarimetric Radar-Based Tornado Debris Paths Associated with EF-4 and EF-5 Tornadoes over Northern Alabama During the Historic Outbreak of 27 April 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Carey, Lawrence D.; Schultz, Chrstopher J.; Schultz, Elise V.; Petersen, Walter A.; Gatlin, Patrick N.; Knupp, Kevin R.; Molthan, Andrew L.; Jedlovec, Gary J.; Darden, Christopher B.

2012-01-01

An historic tornado and severe weather outbreak devastated much of the southeastern United States between 25 and 28 April 2011. On 27 April 2011, northern Alabama was particularly hard hit by a large number of tornadoes, including several that reached EF-4 and EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita damage scale. In northern Alabama alone, there were approximately 100 fatalities and hundreds of more people who were injured or lost their homes during the havoc caused by these violent tornadic storms. Two long-track and violent (EF-4 and EF-5) tornadoes occurred within range of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAHuntsville) Advanced Radar for Meteorological and Operational Research (ARMOR, C-band dual-polarimetric). A unique capability of dual-polarimetric radar is the near-real time identification of lofted debris associated with ongoing tornadoes on the ground. The focus of this paper is to analyze the dual-polarimetric radar-inferred tornado debris signatures and identify the associated debris paths of the long-track EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes near ARMOR. The relative locations of the debris and damage paths for each tornado will be ascertained by careful comparison of the ARMOR analysis with NASA MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) satellite imagery of the tornado damage scenes and the National Weather Service tornado damage surveys. With the ongoing upgrade of the WSR-88D (Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler) operational network to dual-polarimetry and a similar process having already taken place or ongoing for many private sector radars, dual-polarimetric radar signatures of tornado debris promise the potential to assist in the situational awareness of government and private sector forecasters and emergency managers during tornadic events. As such, a companion abstract (Schultz et al.) also submitted to this conference explores The use of dual-polarimetric tornadic debris

Rice status and microwave characteristics: Analysis of rice paddy fields at Kojima Bay [Okayama, Japan] using multi-frequency and polarimetric Pi-SAR radar data images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishitsuka, N.; Saito, G.; Ouchi, K.; Davidson, G.; Mohri, K.; Uratsuka, S.

2003-01-01

Abstract South-east Asia has a rainy-season at the crop growing period, and it is difficult to observe agricultural land in this season using optical remote sensing. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can observe the earth's surface without being influenced by of clouds. However, it is less useful for observing agricultural land, because satellite SAR has only one data band. Recently, SAR is able to provide multi band and multi polarimetric data. Pi-SAR, an airborne SAR developed by NASDA and CRL, can provide L and X bands and fully polarimetric data. Rice is the main crop in Asia, and we studied the characteristic microwave scatter on rice paddy fields using Pi-SAR data. Our study area was the rice paddy fields in Kojima reclaimed land in Japan. We had two fully polarimetric data sets from 13 July 1999 and 4 October 2000. First, we processed the color polarimetric composite image. Next we calibrated the phase of each polarimetric data using river area by the Kimura method. After that we performed decomposition analysis and drew polarimetric signatures for understanding the status of rice paddy fields. At the rice planting period, rice paddy fields are filled with water and rice plants are very small. The SAR microwave scatters on water surfaces like a mirror, called 'mirror (or specular) reflection'. This phenomenon makes backscatter a small value at the water-covered area. The image from July is about one month after trans-planting and rice plants are 20-40 cm in height. X-band microwave scatters on the rice surface, but L-band microwave passes through rice bodies and shows mirror refraction on water surfaces. Some strong backscatter occur on rice paddy fields especially VV polarization because of bragg scattering. The fields where bragg scattering returns strong VV scatter because the space between rice stems cause resonation in the L-band wavelength. We can easily understand bragg scatter by using polarimetric data. Using the image from October at

AIRS-CloudSat cloud mask, radar reflectivities, and cloud classification matchups V3.2

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This is AIRS-CloudSat collocated subset, in NetCDF 4 format. These data contain collocated: AIRS Level 1b radiances spectra, CloudSat radar reflectivities, and MODIS...

Characterization of hydrometeors in Sahelian convective systems with an X-band radar and comparison with in situ measurements. Part I : Sensitivity of polarimetric radar particle identification retrieval and case study evaluation

OpenAIRE

Cazenave, Frédéric; Gosset, Marielle; Kacou, M.; Alcoba, M.; Fontaine, E.; Duroure, C.; Dolan, B.

2016-01-01

The particle identification scheme developed by Dolan and Rutledge for X-band polarimetric radar is tested for the first time in Africa and compared with in situ measurements. The data were acquired during the Megha-Tropiques mission algorithm-validation campaign that occurred in Niger in 2010. The radar classification is compared with the in situ observations gathered by an instrumented aircraft for the 13 August 2010 squall-line case. An original approach has been developed for the radar-in...

Reducing Surface Clutter in Cloud Profiling Radar Data

Science.gov (United States)

Tanelli, Simone; Pak, Kyung; Durden, Stephen; Im, Eastwood

2008-01-01

An algorithm has been devised to reduce ground clutter in the data products of the CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR), which is a nadir-looking radar instrument, in orbit around the Earth, that measures power backscattered by clouds as a function of distance from the instrument. Ground clutter contaminates the CPR data in the lowest 1 km of the atmospheric profile, heretofore making it impossible to use CPR data to satisfy the scientific interest in studying clouds and light rainfall at low altitude. The algorithm is based partly on the fact that the CloudSat orbit is such that the geodetic altitude of the CPR varies continuously over a range of approximately 25 km. As the geodetic altitude changes, the radar timing parameters are changed at intervals defined by flight software in order to keep the troposphere inside a data-collection time window. However, within each interval, the surface of the Earth continuously "scans through" (that is, it moves across) a few range bins of the data time window. For each radar profile, only few samples [one for every range-bin increment ((Delta)r = 240 m)] of the surface-clutter signature are available around the range bin in which the peak of surface return is observed, but samples in consecutive radar profiles are offset slightly (by amounts much less than (Delta)r) with respect to each other according to the relative change in geodetic altitude. As a consequence, in a case in which the surface area under examination is homogenous (e.g., an ocean surface), a sequence of consecutive radar profiles of the surface in that area contains samples of the surface response with range resolution (Delta)p much finer than the range-bin increment ((Delta)p 10 dB and a reduction of the contaminated altitude over ocean from about 1 km to about 0.5 km (over the ocean). The algorithm has been embedded in CloudSat L1B processing as of Release 04 (July 2007), and the estimated flat surface clutter is removed in L2B-GEOPROF product from the

Airborne Radar Observations of Severe Hailstorms: Implications for Future Spaceborne Radar

Science.gov (United States)

Heymsfield, Gerald M.; Tian, Lin; Li, Lihua; McLinden, Matthew; Cervantes, Jaime I.

2013-01-01

A new dual-frequency (Ku and Ka band) nadir-pointing Doppler radar on the high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft, called the High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP), has collected data over severe thunderstorms in Oklahoma and Kansas during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E). The overarching motivation for this study is to understand the behavior of the dualwavelength airborne radar measurements in a global variety of thunderstorms and how these may relate to future spaceborne-radar measurements. HIWRAP is operated at frequencies that are similar to those of the precipitation radar on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (Ku band) and the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement mission satellite's dual-frequency (Ku and Ka bands) precipitation radar. The aircraft measurements of strong hailstorms have been combined with ground-based polarimetric measurements to obtain a better understanding of the response of the Ku- and Ka-band radar to the vertical distribution of the hydrometeors, including hail. Data from two flight lines on 24 May 2011 are presented. Doppler velocities were approx. 39m/s2at 10.7-km altitude from the first flight line early on 24 May, and the lower value of approx. 25m/s on a second flight line later in the day. Vertical motions estimated using a fall speed estimate for large graupel and hail suggested that the first storm had an updraft that possibly exceeded 60m/s for the more intense part of the storm. This large updraft speed along with reports of 5-cm hail at the surface, reflectivities reaching 70 dBZ at S band in the storm cores, and hail signals from polarimetric data provide a highly challenging situation for spaceborne-radar measurements in intense convective systems. The Ku- and Ka-band reflectivities rarely exceed approx. 47 and approx. 37 dBZ, respectively, in these storms.

Utilizing the Vertical Variability of Precipitation to Improve Radar QPE

Science.gov (United States)

Gatlin, Patrick N.; Petersen, Walter A.

2016-01-01

Characteristics of the melting layer and raindrop size distribution can be exploited to further improve radar quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE). Using dual-polarimetric radar and disdrometers, we found that the characteristic size of raindrops reaching the ground in stratiform precipitation often varies linearly with the depth of the melting layer. As a result, a radar rainfall estimator was formulated using D(sub m) that can be employed by polarimetric as well as dual-frequency radars (e.g., space-based radars such as the GPM DPR), to lower the bias and uncertainty of conventional single radar parameter rainfall estimates by as much as 20%. Polarimetric radar also suffers from issues associated with sampling the vertical distribution of precipitation. Hence, we characterized the vertical profile of polarimetric parameters (VP3)-a radar manifestation of the evolving size and shape of hydrometeors as they fall to the ground-on dual-polarimetric rainfall estimation. The VP3 revealed that the profile of ZDR in stratiform rainfall can bias dual-polarimetric rainfall estimators by as much as 50%, even after correction for the vertical profile of reflectivity (VPR). The VP3 correction technique that we developed can improve operational dual-polarimetric rainfall estimates by 13% beyond that offered by a VPR correction alone.

Ground Radar Polarimetric Observations of High-Frequency Earth-Space Communication Links

Science.gov (United States)

Bolen, Steve; Chandrasekar, V.; Benjamin, Andrew

2002-01-01

Strategic roadmaps for NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space (REDS) enterprise support near-term high-frequency communication systems that provide moderate to high data rates with dependable service. Near-earth and human planetary exploration will baseline Ka-Band, but may ultimately require the use of even higher frequencies. Increased commercial demand on low-frequency earth-space bands has also led to increased interest in the use of higher frequencies in regions like K u - and K,- band. Data is taken from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR), which operates at 13.8 GHz, and the true radar reflectivity profile is determined along the PR beam via low-frequency ground based polarimetric observations. The specific differential phase (Kdp) is measured along the beam and a theoretical model is used to determine the expected specific attenuation (k). This technique, called the k-Kdp method, uses a Fuzzy-Logic model to determine the hydrometeor type along the PR beam from which the appropriate k-Kdp relationship is used to determine k and, ultimately, the total path-integrated attenuation (PIA) on PR measurements. Measurements from PR and the NCAR S-POL radar were made during the TEFLUN-B experiment that took place near Melbourne, FL in 1998, and the TRMM-LBA campaign near Ji-Parana, Brazil in 1999.

AIRS-AMSU variables-CloudSat cloud mask, radar reflectivities, and cloud classification matchups V3.2

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This is AIRS-CloudSat collocated subset, in NetCDF 4 format. These data contain collocated: AIRS/AMSU retrievals at AMSU footprints, CloudSat radar reflectivities,...

Simultaneous Differential Polarimetric Measurements and Co-Polar Correlation Coefficient Measurement

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — A polarimetric Doppler weather radar system which allows measurement of linear orthogonal polarimetric variables without a switch by using simultaneous transmission...

Polarimetric study of the interstellar medium in Taurus Dark Clouds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hsu, J.

1985-01-01

An optical linear polarimetric survey was completed for more than 300 stars in an area of 6.5 0 x 10 0 toward the Taurus Dark Clouds Complex. It was found that the orientation of the magnetic field is roughly perpendicular to the elongation direction of the dust lanes, indicating cloud contraction along the magnetic field lines. The distance to the front edge of the dark clouds in Taurus is determined to be 126 pc. There is only insignificant amount of obscuring material between the cloud complex and the Sun. Besides the polarization data, the reddenings of about 250 stars were also obtained from the UBV photometry. The mean polarization to reddening ratio in the Taurus region is 4.6, which is similar to that of the general interstellar matter. The wavelengths of maximum polarization were determined for 30 stars in Taurus. They show an average value of lambda/sub max/ = 0.57 μm, which is only slightly higher than the mean value of the general interstellar medium, lambda/sub max/ = 0.55 μm. A few stars that show higher values of lambda/sub max/ are found near the small isolated regions of very high extinction. One such highly obscured small region where very complex long chain molecules have been discovered in the ratio spectra, is the Taurus Molecular Cloud 1

Estimation of Paddy Rice Variables with a Modified Water Cloud Model and Improved Polarimetric Decomposition Using Multi-Temporal RADARSAT-2 Images

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhi Yang

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Rice growth monitoring is very important as rice is one of the staple crops of the world. Rice variables as quantitative indicators of rice growth are critical for farming management and yield estimation, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR has great advantages for monitoring rice variables due to its all-weather observation capability. In this study, eight temporal RADARSAT-2 full-polarimetric SAR images were acquired during rice growth cycle and a modified water cloud model (MWCM was proposed, in which the heterogeneity of the rice canopy in the horizontal direction and its phenological changes were considered when the double-bounce scattering between the rice canopy and the underlying surface was firstly considered as well. Then, three scattering components from an improved polarimetric decomposition were coupled with the MWCM, instead of the backscattering coefficients. Using a genetic algorithm, eight rice variables were estimated, such as the leaf area index (LAI, rice height (h, and the fresh and dry biomass of ears (Fe and De. The accuracy validation showed the MWCM was suitable for the estimation of rice variables during the whole growth season. The validation results showed that the MWCM could predict the temporal behaviors of the rice variables well during the growth cycle (R2 > 0.8. Compared with the original water cloud model (WCM, the relative errors of rice variables with the MWCM were much smaller, especially in the vegetation phase (approximately 15% smaller. Finally, it was discussed that the MWCM could be used, theoretically, for extensive applications since the empirical coefficients in the MWCM were determined in general cases, but more applications of the MWCM are necessary in future work.

Ku/Ka/W-band Antenna for Electronically-Scanned Cloud and Precipitation Radar

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Previously, cloud radars such as CloudSat have been separated from precipitation radars such as TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission) and GPM (Global...

Actividades del grupo EEF en el contexto de la red europea TMR "Polarimetría radar: Teoría y aplicaciones"

OpenAIRE

Fabregas Canovas, Francisco Javier; López Martínez, Carlos; Broquetas Ibars, Antoni

2000-01-01

The activity of the EEF group in the TMR European Project Radar Polarimetry: Theory and Applications will be presented in this paper. We have developed new polarimetric-interferometric retrieval algorithms and enhancement techniques. These methods will be showed briefly in the next points. Peer Reviewed

Initial assessment of an airborne Ku-band polarimetric SAR.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Raynal, Ann Marie; Doerry, Armin Walter

2013-02-01

Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has been used for a variety of dual-use research applications since the 1940s. By measuring the direction of the electric field vector from radar echoes, polarimetry may enhance an analysts understanding of scattering effects for both earth monitoring and tactical surveillance missions. Polarimetry may provide insight into surface types, materials, or orientations for natural and man-made targets. Polarimetric measurements may also be used to enhance the contrast between scattering surfaces such as man-made objects and their surroundings. This report represents an initial assessment of the utility of, and applications for, polarimetric SAR at Ku-band for airborne or unmanned aerial systems.

Polarimetric rainfall retrieval from a C-Band weather radar in a tropical environment (The Philippines)

Science.gov (United States)

Crisologo, I.; Vulpiani, G.; Abon, C. C.; David, C. P. C.; Bronstert, A.; Heistermann, Maik

2014-11-01

We evaluated the potential of polarimetric rainfall retrieval methods for the Tagaytay C-Band weather radar in the Philippines. For this purpose, we combined a method for fuzzy echo classification, an approach to extract and reconstruct the differential propagation phase, Φ DP , and a polarimetric self-consistency approach to calibrate horizontal and differential reflectivity. The reconstructed Φ DP was used to estimate path-integrated attenuation and to retrieve the specific differential phase, K DP . All related algorithms were transparently implemented in the Open Source radar processing software wradlib. Rainfall was then estimated from different variables: from re-calibrated reflectivity, from re-calibrated reflectivity that has been corrected for path-integrated attenuation, from the specific differential phase, and from a combination of reflectivity and specific differential phase. As an additional benchmark, rainfall was estimated by interpolating the rainfall observed by rain gauges. We evaluated the rainfall products for daily and hourly accumulations. For this purpose, we used observations of 16 rain gauges from a five-month period in the 2012 wet season. It turned out that the retrieval of rainfall from K DP substantially improved the rainfall estimation at both daily and hourly time scales. The measurement of reflectivity apparently was impaired by severe miscalibration while K DP was immune to such effects. Daily accumulations of rainfall retrieved from K DP showed a very low estimation bias and small random errors. Random scatter was, though, strongly present in hourly accumulations.

Efficient Estimation of Spectral Moments and the Polarimetric Variables on Weather Radars, Sonars, Sodars, Acoustic Flow Meters, Lidars, and Similar Active Remote Sensing Instruments

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — A method for estimation of Doppler spectrum, its moments, and polarimetric variables on pulsed weather radars which uses over sampled echo components at a rate...

Clustering of Multi-Temporal Fully Polarimetric L-Band SAR Data for Agricultural Land Cover Mapping

Science.gov (United States)

Tamiminia, H.; Homayouni, S.; Safari, A.

2015-12-01

Recently, the unique capabilities of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) sensors make them an important and efficient tool for natural resources and environmental applications, such as land cover and crop classification. The aim of this paper is to classify multi-temporal full polarimetric SAR data using kernel-based fuzzy C-means clustering method, over an agricultural region. This method starts with transforming input data into the higher dimensional space using kernel functions and then clustering them in the feature space. Feature space, due to its inherent properties, has the ability to take in account the nonlinear and complex nature of polarimetric data. Several SAR polarimetric features extracted using target decomposition algorithms. Features from Cloude-Pottier, Freeman-Durden and Yamaguchi algorithms used as inputs for the clustering. This method was applied to multi-temporal UAVSAR L-band images acquired over an agricultural area near Winnipeg, Canada, during June and July in 2012. The results demonstrate the efficiency of this approach with respect to the classical methods. In addition, using multi-temporal data in the clustering process helped to investigate the phenological cycle of plants and significantly improved the performance of agricultural land cover mapping.

Evaluation of X-band polarimetric radar estimation of rainfall and rain drop size distribution parameters in West Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Koffi, A. K.; Gosset, M.; Zahiri, E.-P.; Ochou, A. D.; Kacou, M.; Cazenave, F.; Assamoi, P.

2014-06-01

As part of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) field campaign an X-band dual-polarization Doppler radar was deployed in Benin, West-Africa, in 2006 and 2007, together with a reinforced rain gauge network and several optical disdrometers. Based on this data set, a comparative study of several rainfall estimators that use X-band polarimetric radar data is presented. In tropical convective systems as encountered in Benin, microwave attenuation by rain is significant and quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) at X-band is a challenge. Here, several algorithms based on the combined use of reflectivity, differential reflectivity and differential phase shift are evaluated against rain gauges and disdrometers. Four rainfall estimators were tested on twelve rainy events: the use of attenuation corrected reflectivity only (estimator R(ZH)), the use of the specific phase shift only R(KDP), the combination of specific phase shift and differential reflectivity R(KDP,ZDR) and an estimator that uses three radar parameters R(ZH,ZDR,KDP). The coefficients of the power law relationships between rain rate and radar variables were adjusted either based on disdrometer data and simulation, or on radar-gauges observations. The three polarimetric based algorithms with coefficients predetermined on observations outperform the R(ZH) estimator for rain rates above 10 mm/h which explain most of the rainfall in the studied region. For the highest rain rates (above 30 mm/h) R(KDP) shows even better scores, and given its performances and its simplicity of implementation, is recommended. The radar based retrieval of two parameters of the rain drop size distribution, the normalized intercept parameter NW and the volumetric median diameter Dm was evaluated on four rainy days thanks to disdrometers. The frequency distributions of the two parameters retrieved by the radar are very close to those observed with the disdrometer. NW retrieval based on a combination of ZH

Cloud occurrences and cloud radiative effects (CREs) from CERES-CALIPSO-CloudSat-MODIS (CCCM) and CloudSat radar-lidar (RL) products

Science.gov (United States)

Ham, Seung-Hee; Kato, Seiji; Rose, Fred G.; Winker, David; L'Ecuyer, Tristan; Mace, Gerald G.; Painemal, David; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Chen, Yan; Miller, Walter F.

2017-08-01

Two kinds of cloud products obtained from Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), CloudSat, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are compared and analyzed in this study: Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)-CALIPSO-CloudSat-MODIS (CCCM) product and CloudSat radar-lidar products such as GEOPROF-LIDAR and FLXHR-LIDAR. Compared to GEOPROF-LIDAR, low-level (40°). The difference occurs when hydrometeors are detected by CALIPSO lidar but are undetected by CloudSat radar. In the comparison of cloud radiative effects (CREs), global mean differences between CCCM and FLXHR-LIDAR are mostly smaller than 5 W m-2, while noticeable regional differences are found. For example, CCCM shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) CREs are larger than FXLHR-LIDAR along the west coasts of Africa and America because the GEOPROF-LIDAR algorithm misses shallow marine boundary layer clouds. In addition, FLXHR-LIDAR SW CREs are larger than the CCCM counterpart over tropical oceans away from the west coasts of America. Over midlatitude storm-track regions, CCCM SW and LW CREs are larger than the FLXHR-LIDAR counterpart.

Polarimetric C-Band SAR Observations of Sea Ice in the Greenland Sea

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Bjørn Bavnehøj; Nghiem, S.V.; Kwok, R.

1998-01-01

The fully polarimetric EMISAR acquired C-band radar signatures of sea ice in the Greenland Sea during a campaign in March 1995. The authors present maps of polarimetric signatures over an area containing various kinds of ice and discuss the use of polarimetric SAR for identification of ice types...

Comparison of Monthly Mean Cloud Fraction and Cloud Optical depth Determined from Surface Cloud Radar, TOVS, AVHRR, and MODIS over Barrow, Alaska

Science.gov (United States)

Uttal, Taneil; Frisch, Shelby; Wang, Xuan-Ji; Key, Jeff; Schweiger, Axel; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Minnis, Patrick

2005-01-01

A one year comparison is made of mean monthly values of cloud fraction and cloud optical depth over Barrow, Alaska (71 deg 19.378 min North, 156 deg 36.934 min West) between 35 GHz radar-based retrievals, the TOVS Pathfinder Path-P product, the AVHRR APP-X product, and a MODIS based cloud retrieval product from the CERES-Team. The data sets represent largely disparate spatial and temporal scales, however, in this paper, the focus is to provide a preliminary analysis of how the mean monthly values derived from these different data sets compare, and determine how they can best be used separately, and in combination to provide reliable estimates of long-term trends of changing cloud properties. The radar and satellite data sets described here incorporate Arctic specific modifications that account for cloud detection challenges specific to the Arctic environment. The year 2000 was chosen for this initial comparison because the cloud radar data was particularly continuous and reliable that year, and all of the satellite retrievals of interest were also available for the year 2000. Cloud fraction was chosen as a comparison variable as accurate detection of cloud is the primary product that is necessary for any other cloud property retrievals. Cloud optical depth was additionally selected as it is likely the single cloud property that is most closely correlated to cloud influences on surface radiation budgets.

The Next Generation of Airborne Polarimetric Doppler Weather Radar: NCAR/EOL Airborne Phased Array Radar (APAR) Development

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, James; Lee, Wen-Chau; Loew, Eric; Vivekanandan, Jothiram; Grubišić, Vanda; Tsai, Peisang; Dixon, Mike; Emmett, Jonathan; Lord, Mark; Lussier, Louis; Hwang, Kyuil; Ranson, James

2017-04-01

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Earth observing Laboratory (EOL) is entering the third year of preliminary system design studies, engineering prototype testing and project management plan preparation for the development of a novel Airborne Phased Array Radar (APAR). This system being designed by NCAR/EOL will be installed and operated on the NSF/NCAR C-130 aircraft. The APAR system will consist of four removable C-band Active Electronically Scanned Arrays (AESA) strategically placed on the fuselage of the aircraft. Each AESA measures approximately 1.5 x 1.9 m and is composed of 3000 active radiating elements arranged in an array of line replaceable units (LRU) to simplify maintenance. APAR will provide unprecedented observations, and in conjunction with the advanced radar data assimilation schema, will be able to address the key science questions to improve understanding and predictability of significant and high-impact weather APAR, operating at C-band, allows the measurement of 3-D kinematics of the more intense portions of storms (e.g. thunderstorm dynamics and tornadic development, tropical cyclone rainband structure and evolution) with less attenuation compared with current airborne Doppler radar systems. Polarimetric measurements are not available from current airborne tail Doppler radars. However, APAR, with dual-Doppler and dual polarization diversity at a lesser attenuating C-band wavelength, will further advance the understanding of the microphysical processes within a variety of precipitation systems. The radar is sensitive enough to provide high resolution measurements of winter storm dynamics and microphysics. The planned APAR development that would bring the system to operational readiness for research community use aboard the C-130 is expected to take 8 years once major funding support is realized. The authors will review the overall APAR design and provide new details of the system based on our Technical Requirements Document

Using Radar, Lidar, and Radiometer measurements to Classify Cloud Type and Study Middle-Level Cloud Properties

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Zhien

2010-06-29

The project is mainly focused on the characterization of cloud macrophysical and microphysical properties, especially for mixed-phased clouds and middle level ice clouds by combining radar, lidar, and radiometer measurements available from the ACRF sites. First, an advanced mixed-phase cloud retrieval algorithm will be developed to cover all mixed-phase clouds observed at the ACRF NSA site. The algorithm will be applied to the ACRF NSA observations to generate a long-term arctic mixed-phase cloud product for model validations and arctic mixed-phase cloud processes studies. To improve the representation of arctic mixed-phase clouds in GCMs, an advanced understanding of mixed-phase cloud processes is needed. By combining retrieved mixed-phase cloud microphysical properties with in situ data and large-scale meteorological data, the project aim to better understand the generations of ice crystals in supercooled water clouds, the maintenance mechanisms of the arctic mixed-phase clouds, and their connections with large-scale dynamics. The project will try to develop a new retrieval algorithm to study more complex mixed-phase clouds observed at the ACRF SGP site. Compared with optically thin ice clouds, optically thick middle level ice clouds are less studied because of limited available tools. The project will develop a new two wavelength radar technique for optically thick ice cloud study at SGP site by combining the MMCR with the W-band radar measurements. With this new algorithm, the SGP site will have a better capability to study all ice clouds. Another area of the proposal is to generate long-term cloud type classification product for the multiple ACRF sites. The cloud type classification product will not only facilitates the generation of the integrated cloud product by applying different retrieval algorithms to different types of clouds operationally, but will also support other research to better understand cloud properties and to validate model simulations. The

Microphysical Structures of Hurricane Irma Observed by Polarimetric Radar

Science.gov (United States)

Didlake, A. C.; Kumjian, M. R.

2017-12-01

This study examines dual-polarization radar observations of Hurricane Irma as its center passed near the WSR-88D radar in Puerto Rico, capturing needed microphysical information of a mature tropical cyclone. Twenty hours of observations continuously sampled the inner core precipitation features. These data were analyzed by annuli and azimuth, providing a bulk characterization of the primary eyewall, secondary eyewall, and rainbands as they varied around the storm. Polarimetric radar variables displayed distinct signatures of convective and stratiform precipitation in the primary eyewall and rainbands that were organized in a manner consistent with the expected kinematic asymmetry of a storm in weak environmental wind shear but with moderate low-level storm-relative flow. In the front quadrants of the primary eyewall, vertical profiles of differential reflectivity (ZDR) exhibit increasing values with decreasing height consistent with convective precipitation processes. In particular, the front-right quadrant exhibits a signature in reflectivity (ZH) and ZDR indicating larger, sparser drops, which is consistent with a stronger updraft present in this quadrant. In the rear quadrants, a sharply peaked ZDR maximum occurs within the melting layer, which is attributed of stratiform processes. In the rainbands, the convective to stratiform transition can be seen traveling from the front-right to the front-left quadrant. The front-right quadrant exhibits lower co-polar correlation coefficient (ρHV) values in the 3-8 km altitude layer, suggesting larger vertical spreading of various hydrometeors that occurs in convective vertical motions. The front-left quadrant exhibits larger ρHV values, suggesting less diversity of hydrometeor shapes, consistent with stratiform processes. The secondary eyewall did not exhibit a clear signature of processes preferred in a specific quadrant, and a temporal analysis of the secondary eyewall revealed a complex evolution of its structure

AMF3 CloudSat Overpasses Field Campaign Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Matrosov, Sergey [University of Colorado, Boulder; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.; Hardin, Joseph [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); De Boer, Gijs [University of Colorado, Boulder; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.; Shupe, Matthew [University of Colorado, Boulder; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.; Maahn, Maximillian [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.; Williams, Christopher [University of Colorado, Boulder; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.

2017-10-15

Synergy between ground-based and satellite radar observations of clouds and precipitation is important for refining the algorithms to retrieve hydrometeor microphysical parameters, improvements in the retrieval accuracy, and better understanding the advantages and limitations of different retrieval approaches. The new dual-frequency (Ka- and W-band, 35 GHz and 94 GHz) fully polarimetric scanning U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Research Facility cloud radars (SACRs-2) are advanced sensors aimed to significantly enhance remote sensing capabilities (Kollias et al. 2016). One of these radars was deployed as part of the third ARM Mobile Facility (AMF3) at Oliktok Point, Alaska (70.495o N, 149.886oW). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) CloudSat satellite, which is part of the polar-orbiting A-train satellite constellation, passes over the vicinity of the AMF3 location (typically within 0-7 km depending on a particular overpass) on a descending orbit every 16 days at approximately 13:21 UTC. The nadir pointing W-band CloudSat cloud profiling radar (CPR) provides vertical profiles of reflectivity that are then used for retrievals of hydrometeor parameters (Tanelli et al. 2008). The main objective of the AMF3 CloudSat overpasses intensive operating period (IOP) campaign was to collect approximately collocated in space and time radar data from the SACR-2 and the CloudSat CPR measurements for subsequent joint analysis of radar variables and microphysical retrievals of cloud and precipitation parameters. Providing the reference for the SACR-2 absolute calibration from the well-calibrated CloudSat CPR was another objective of this IOP. The IOP objectives were achieved by conducting seven special SACR-2 scans during the 10.5-min period centered at the exact time of the CloudSat overpass over the AMF3 (~1321 UTC) on six dates of the CloudSat overpasses during the three-month period allocated to this IOP. These six days

Dual-wavelength millimeter-wave radar measurements of cirrus clouds

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sekelsky, S.M.; Firda, J.M.; McIntosh, R.E. [Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)

1996-04-01

In April 1994, the University of Massachusetts` 33-GHz/95-GHz Cloud Profiling Radar System (CPRS) participated in the multi-sensor Remote Cloud Sensing (RCS) Intensive Operation Period (IOP), which was conducted at the Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART). During the 3-week experiment, CPRS measured a variety of cloud types and severe weather. In the context of global warming, the most significant measurements are dual-frequency observations of cirrus clouds, which may eventually be used to estimate ice crystal size and shape. Much of the cirrus data collected with CPRS show differences between 33-GHz and 95-GHz reflectivity measurements that are correlated with Doppler estimates of fall velocity. Because of the small range of reflectivity differences, a precise calibration of the radar is required and differential attenuation must also be removed from the data. Depolarization, which is an indicator of crystal shape, was also observed in several clouds. In this abstract we present examples of Mie scattering from cirrus and estimates of differential attenuation due to water vapor and oxygen that were derived from CART radiosonde measurements.

Using polarimetric radar observations and probabilistic inference to develop the Bayesian Observationally-constrained Statistical-physical Scheme (BOSS), a novel microphysical parameterization framework

Science.gov (United States)

van Lier-Walqui, M.; Morrison, H.; Kumjian, M. R.; Prat, O. P.

2016-12-01

Microphysical parameterization schemes have reached an impressive level of sophistication: numerous prognostic hydrometeor categories, and either size-resolved (bin) particle size distributions, or multiple prognostic moments of the size distribution. Yet, uncertainty in model representation of microphysical processes and the effects of microphysics on numerical simulation of weather has not shown a improvement commensurate with the advanced sophistication of these schemes. We posit that this may be caused by unconstrained assumptions of these schemes, such as ad-hoc parameter value choices and structural uncertainties (e.g. choice of a particular form for the size distribution). We present work on development and observational constraint of a novel microphysical parameterization approach, the Bayesian Observationally-constrained Statistical-physical Scheme (BOSS), which seeks to address these sources of uncertainty. Our framework avoids unnecessary a priori assumptions, and instead relies on observations to provide probabilistic constraint of the scheme structure and sensitivities to environmental and microphysical conditions. We harness the rich microphysical information content of polarimetric radar observations to develop and constrain BOSS within a Bayesian inference framework using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampler (see Kumjian et al., this meeting for details on development of an associated polarimetric forward operator). Our work shows how knowledge of microphysical processes is provided by polarimetric radar observations of diverse weather conditions, and which processes remain highly uncertain, even after considering observations.

Empirical Soil Moisture Estimation with Spaceborne L-band Polarimetric Radars: Aquarius, SMAP, and PALSAR-2

Science.gov (United States)

Burgin, M. S.; van Zyl, J. J.

2017-12-01

Traditionally, substantial ancillary data is needed to parametrize complex electromagnetic models to estimate soil moisture from polarimetric radar data. The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) baseline radar soil moisture retrieval algorithm uses a data cube approach, where a cube of radar backscatter values is calculated using sophisticated models. In this work, we utilize the empirical approach by Kim and van Zyl (2009) which is an optional SMAP radar soil moisture retrieval algorithm; it expresses radar backscatter of a vegetated scene as a linear function of soil moisture, hence eliminating the need for ancillary data. We use 2.5 years of L-band Aquarius radar and radiometer derived soil moisture data to determine two coefficients of a linear model function on a global scale. These coefficients are used to estimate soil moisture with 2.5 months of L-band SMAP and L-band PALSAR-2 data. The estimated soil moisture is compared with the SMAP Level 2 radiometer-only soil moisture product; the global unbiased RMSE of the SMAP derived soil moisture corresponds to 0.06-0.07 cm3/cm3. In this study, we leverage the three diverse L-band radar data sets to investigate the impact of pixel size and pixel heterogeneity on soil moisture estimation performance. Pixel sizes range from 100 km for Aquarius, over 3, 9, 36 km for SMAP, to 10m for PALSAR-2. Furthermore, we observe seasonal variation in the radar sensitivity to soil moisture which allows the identification and quantification of seasonally changing vegetation. Utilizing this information, we further improve the estimation performance. The research described in this paper is supported by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.

Assessment of the Performance of the Chilbolton 3-GHz Advanced Meteorological Radar for Cloud-Top-Height Retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Naud, C. M.; Muller, J.-P.; Slack, E. C.; Wrench, C. L.; Clothiaux, E. E.

2005-06-01

The Chilbolton 3-GHz Advanced Meteorological Radar (CAMRa), which is mounted on a fully steerable 25-m dish, can provide three-dimensional information on the presence of hydrometeors. The potential for this radar to make useful measurements of low-altitude liquid water cloud structure is investigated. To assess the cloud-height assignment capabilities of the 3-GHz radar, low-level cloud-top heights were retrieved from CAMRa measurements made between May and July 2003 and were compared with cloud-top heights retrieved from a vertically pointing 94-GHz radar that operates alongside CAMRa. The average difference between the 94- and 3-GHz radar-derived cloud-top heights is shown to be -0.1 ± 0.4 km. To assess the capability of 3-GHz radar scans to be used for satellite-derived cloud-top-height validation, multiangle imaging spectroradiometer (MISR) cloud-top heights were compared with both 94- and 3-GHz radar retrievals. The average difference between 94-GHz radar and MISR cloud-top heights is shown to be 0.1 ± 0.3 km, while the 3-GHz radar and MISR average cloud-top-height difference is shown to be -0.2 ± 0.6 km. In assessing the value of the CAMRa measurements, the problems associated with low-reflectivity values from stratiform liquid water clouds, ground clutter, and Bragg scattering resulting from turbulent mixing are all addressed. It is shown that, despite the difficulties, the potential exists for CAMRa measurements to contribute significantly to liquid water cloud-top-height retrievals, leading to the production of two-dimensional transects (i.e., maps) of cloud-top height.

Temporal Decorrelation Effect in Carbon Stocks Estimation Using Polarimetric Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolInSAR (Case Study: Southeast Sulawesi Tropical Forest

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laode M Golok Jaya

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This paper was aimed to analyse the effect of temporal decorrelation in carbon stocks estimation. Estimation of carbon stocks plays important roles particularly to understand the global carbon cycle in the atmosphere regarding with climate change mitigation effort. PolInSAR technique combines the advantages of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR and Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR technique, which is evidenced to have significant contribution in radar mapping technology in the last few years. In carbon stocks estimation, PolInSAR provides information about vertical vegetation structure to estimate carbon stocks in the forest layers. Two coherence Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR images of ALOS PALSAR full-polarimetric with 46 days temporal baseline were used in this research. The study was carried out in Southeast Sulawesi tropical forest. The research method was by comparing three interferometric phase coherence images affected by temporal decorrelation and their impacts on Random Volume over Ground (RvoG model. This research showed that 46 days temporal baseline has a significant impact to estimate tree heights of the forest cover where the accuracy decrease from R2=0.7525 (standard deviation of tree heights is 2.75 meters to R2=0.4435 (standard deviation 4.68 meters and R2=0.3772 (standard deviation 3.15 meters respectively. However, coherence optimisation can provide the best coherence image to produce a good accuracy of carbon stocks.

Multi-look polarimetric SAR image filtering using simulated annealing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schou, Jesper

2000-01-01

Based on a previously published algorithm capable of estimating the radar cross-section in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) intensity images, a new filter is presented utilizing multi-look polarimetric SAR images. The underlying mean covariance matrix is estimated from the observed sample covariance...

Evaluation of turbulent dissipation rate retrievals from Doppler Cloud Radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. D. Shupe

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Turbulent dissipation rate retrievals from cloud radar Doppler velocity measurements are evaluated using independent, in situ observations in Arctic stratocumulus clouds. In situ validation data sets of dissipation rate are derived using sonic anemometer measurements from a tethered balloon and high frequency pressure variation observations from a research aircraft, both flown in proximity to stationary, ground-based radars. Modest biases are found among the data sets in particularly low- or high-turbulence regimes, but in general the radar-retrieved values correspond well with the in situ measurements. Root mean square differences are typically a factor of 4–6 relative to any given magnitude of dissipation rate. These differences are no larger than those found when comparing dissipation rates computed from tethered-balloon and meteorological tower-mounted sonic anemometer measurements made at spatial distances of a few hundred meters. Temporal lag analyses suggest that approximately half of the observed differences are due to spatial sampling considerations, such that the anticipated radar-based retrieval uncertainty is on the order of a factor of 2–3. Moreover, radar retrievals are clearly able to capture the vertical dissipation rate structure observed by the in situ sensors, while offering substantially more information on the time variability of turbulence profiles. Together these evaluations indicate that radar-based retrievals can, at a minimum, be used to determine the vertical structure of turbulence in Arctic stratocumulus clouds.

The ARM Cloud Radar Simulator for Global Climate Models: Bridging Field Data and Climate Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Yuying [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; Xie, Shaocheng [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; Klein, Stephen A. [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; Marchand, Roger [University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; Kollias, Pavlos [Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York; Clothiaux, Eugene E. [The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Lin, Wuyin [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York; Johnson, Karen [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York; Swales, Dustin [CIRES and NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado; Bodas-Salcedo, Alejandro [Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom; Tang, Shuaiqi [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; Haynes, John M. [Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere/Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado; Collis, Scott [Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois; Jensen, Michael [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York; Bharadwaj, Nitin [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington; Hardin, Joseph [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington; Isom, Bradley [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington

2018-01-01

Clouds play an important role in Earth’s radiation budget and hydrological cycle. However, current global climate models (GCMs) have had difficulties in accurately simulating clouds and precipitation. To improve the representation of clouds in climate models, it is crucial to identify where simulated clouds differ from real world observations of them. This can be difficult, since significant differences exist between how a climate model represents clouds and what instruments observe, both in terms of spatial scale and the properties of the hydrometeors which are either modeled or observed. To address these issues and minimize impacts of instrument limitations, the concept of instrument “simulators”, which convert model variables into pseudo-instrument observations, has evolved with the goal to improve and to facilitate the comparison of modeled clouds with observations. Many simulators have (and continue to be developed) for a variety of instruments and purposes. A community satellite simulator package, the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) Observation Simulator Package (COSP; Bodas-Salcedo et al. 2011), contains several independent satellite simulators and is being widely used in the global climate modeling community to exploit satellite observations for model cloud evaluation (e.g., Klein et al. 2013; Zhang et al. 2010). This article introduces a ground-based cloud radar simulator developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program for comparing climate model clouds with ARM observations from its vertically pointing 35-GHz radars. As compared to CloudSat radar observations, ARM radar measurements occur with higher temporal resolution and finer vertical resolution. This enables users to investigate more fully the detailed vertical structures within clouds, resolve thin clouds, and quantify the diurnal variability of clouds. Particularly, ARM radars are sensitive to low-level clouds, which are

Integrated, Dual Orthogonal Antennas for Polarimetric Ground Penetrating Radar

Science.gov (United States)

Pauli, Mario; Wiesbeck, Werner

2015-04-01

Ground penetrating radar systems are mostly equipped with single polarized antennas, for example with single linear polarization or with circular polarization. The radiated waves are partly reflected at the ground surface and very often the penetrating waves are distorted in their polarization. The distortion depends on the ground homogeneity and the orientation of the antennas relative to the ground structure. The received signals from the reflecting objects may most times only be classified according to their coverage and intensity. This makes the recognition of the objects difficult or impossible. In airborne and spaceborne Remote Sensing the systems are meanwhile mostly equipped with front ends with dual orthogonal polarized antennas for a full polarimetric operation. The received signals, registered in 2x2 scattering matrices according to co- and cross polarization, are processed for the evaluation of all features of the targets. Ground penetrating radars could also profit from the scientific results of Remote Sensing. The classification of detected objects for their structure and orientation requires more information in the reflected signal than can be measured with a single polarization [1, 2]. In this paper dual linear, orthogonal polarized antennas with a common single, frequency independent phase center, are presented [3]. The relative bandwidth of these antennas can be 1:3, up to 1:4. The antenna is designed to work in the frequency range between 3 GHz and 11 GHz, but can be easily adapted to the GPR frequency range by scaling. The size of the antenna scaled for operation in typical GPR frequencies would approximately be 20 by 20 cm2. By the implementation in a dielectric carrier it could be reduced in size if required. The major problem for ultra wide band, dual polarized antennas is the frequency independent feed network, realizing the required phase shifts. For these antennas a network, which is frequency independent over a wide range, has been

Fingerprints of a riming event on cloud radar Doppler spectra: observations and modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Kalesse

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Radar Doppler spectra measurements are exploited to study a riming event when precipitating ice from a seeder cloud sediment through a supercooled liquid water (SLW layer. The focus is on the "golden sample" case study for this type of analysis based on observations collected during the deployment of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program's (ARM mobile facility AMF2 at Hyytiälä, Finland, during the Biogenic Aerosols – Effects on Clouds and Climate (BAECC field campaign. The presented analysis of the height evolution of the radar Doppler spectra is a state-of-the-art retrieval with profiling cloud radars in SLW layers beyond the traditional use of spectral moments. Dynamical effects are considered by following the particle population evolution along slanted tracks that are caused by horizontal advection of the cloud under wind shear conditions. In the SLW layer, the identified liquid peak is used as an air motion tracer to correct the Doppler spectra for vertical air motion and the ice peak is used to study the radar profiles of rimed particles. A 1-D steady-state bin microphysical model is constrained using the SLW and air motion profiles and cloud top radar observations. The observed radar moment profiles of the rimed snow can be simulated reasonably well by the model, but not without making several assumptions about the ice particle concentration and the relative role of deposition and aggregation. This suggests that in situ observations of key ice properties are needed to complement the profiling radar observations before process-oriented studies can effectively evaluate ice microphysical parameterizations.

Novel Polarimetric SAR Interferometry Algorithms, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Polarimetric radar interferometry (PolInSAR) is a new SAR imaging mode that is rapidly becoming an important technique for bare earth topographic mapping, tree...

3D And 4D Cloud Lifecycle Investigations Using Innovative Scanning Radar Analysis Methods. Final report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kollias, Pavlos [Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)

2017-04-23

With the vast upgrades to the ARM program radar measurement capabilities in 2010 and beyond, our ability to probe the 3D structure of clouds and associated precipitation has increased dramatically. This project build on the PI's and co-I's expertisein the analysis of radar observations. The first research thrust aims to document the 3D morphological (as depicted by the radar reflectivity structure) and 3D dynamical (cloud$-$scale eddies) structure of boundary layer clouds. Unraveling the 3D dynamical structure of stratocumulus and shallow cumulus clouds requires decomposition of the environmental wind contribution and particle sedimentation velocity from the observed radial Doppler velocity. The second thrust proposes to unravel the mechanism of cumulus entrainment (location, scales) and its impact on microphysics utilizing radar measurements from the vertically pointing and new scanning radars at the ARM sites. The third research thrust requires the development of a cloud$-$tracking algorithm that monitors the properties of cloud.

Comparison of cloud top heights derived from FY-2 meteorological satellites with heights derived from ground-based millimeter wavelength cloud radar

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhe; Wang, Zhenhui; Cao, Xiaozhong; Tao, Fa

2018-01-01

Clouds are currently observed by both ground-based and satellite remote sensing techniques. Each technique has its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the observation method, instrument performance and the methods used for retrieval. It is important to study synergistic cloud measurements to improve the reliability of the observations and to verify the different techniques. The FY-2 geostationary orbiting meteorological satellites continuously observe the sky over China. Their cloud top temperature product can be processed to retrieve the cloud top height (CTH). The ground-based millimeter wavelength cloud radar can acquire information about the vertical structure of clouds-such as the cloud base height (CBH), CTH and the cloud thickness-and can continuously monitor changes in the vertical profiles of clouds. The CTHs were retrieved using both cloud top temperature data from the FY-2 satellites and the cloud radar reflectivity data for the same time period (June 2015 to May 2016) and the resulting datasets were compared in order to evaluate the accuracy of CTH retrievals using FY-2 satellites. The results show that the concordance rate of cloud detection between the two datasets was 78.1%. Higher consistencies were obtained for thicker clouds with larger echo intensity and for more continuous clouds. The average difference in the CTH between the two techniques was 1.46 km. The difference in CTH between low- and mid-level clouds was less than that for high-level clouds. An attenuation threshold of the cloud radar for rainfall was 0.2 mm/min; a rainfall intensity below this threshold had no effect on the CTH. The satellite CTH can be used to compensate for the attenuation error in the cloud radar data.

Retrieval of Boundary Layer 3D Cloud Properties Using Scanning Cloud Radar and 3D Radiative Transfer

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marchand, Roger [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)

2017-01-24

Retrievals of cloud optical and microphysical properties for boundary layer clouds, including those widely used by ASR investigators, frequently assume that clouds are sufficiently horizontally homogeneous that scattering and absorption (at all wavelengths) can be treated using one dimensional (1D) radiative transfer, and that differences in the field-of-view of different sensors are unimportant. Unfortunately, most boundary layer clouds are far from horizontally homogeneous, and numerous theoretical and observational studies show that the assumption of horizontal homogeneity leads to significant errors. The introduction of scanning cloud and precipitation radars at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program sites presents opportunities to move beyond the horizontally homogeneous assumption. The primary objective of this project was to develop a 3D retrieval for warm-phase (liquid only) boundary layer cloud microphysical properties, and to assess errors in current 1D (non-scanning) approaches. Specific research activities also involved examination of the diurnal cycle of hydrometeors as viewed by ARM cloud radar, and continued assessment of precipitation impacts on retrievals of cloud liquid water path using passive microwaves.

Dual-Polarimetric Radar-Based Tornado Debris Signatures and Paths Associated with Tornadoes Over Northern Alabama During the Historic Outbreak of 27 April 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Carey, Lawrence D.; Schultz, Christopher J.; Schultz, Elise V.; Petersen, Walter A.; Gatlin, Patrick N.; Knupp, Kevin R.; Molthan, Andrew L.; Jedloved, Gary J.; Carcione, Brian C.; Darden, Christopher B.;

Analysis of 35 GHz Cloud Radar polarimetric variables to identify stratiform and convective precipitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Fontaine, Emmanuel; Illingworth, Anthony, J.; Stein, Thorwald

2017-04-01

This study is performed using vertical profiles of radar measurements at 35GHz, for the period going from 29th of February to 1rst October 2016, at the Chilbolton observatory in United Kingdom. During this period, more than 40 days with precipitation events are investigated. The investigation uses the synergy of radar reflectivity factors, vertical velocity, Doppler spectrum width, and linear depolarization ratio (LDR) to differentiate between stratiform and convective rain events. The depth of the layer with Doppler spectrum width values greater than 0.5 m s-1 is shown to be a suitable proxy to distinguish between convective and stratiform events. Using LDR to detect the radar bright band, bright band characteristics such as depth of the layer and maximum LDR are shown to vary with the amount of turbulence aloft. Profiles of radar measurements are also compared to rain gauge measurements to study the contribution of convective and stratiform rainfall to total rain duration and amount. To conclude, this study points out differences between convective and stratiform rains and quantifies their contributions over a precipitation event, highlighting that convective and stratiform rainfall should be considered as a continuum rather than a dichotomy.

Estimation of High-Frequency Earth-Space Radio Wave Signals via Ground-Based Polarimetric Radar Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Bolen, Steve; Chandrasekar, V.

2002-01-01

Expanding human presence in space, and enabling the commercialization of this frontier, is part of the strategic goals for NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) enterprise. Future near-Earth and planetary missions will support the use of high-frequency Earth-space communication systems. Additionally, increased commercial demand on low-frequency Earth-space links in the S- and C-band spectra have led to increased interest in the use of higher frequencies in regions like Ku and Ka-band. Attenuation of high-frequency signals, due to a precipitating medium, can be quite severe and can cause considerable disruptions in a communications link that traverses such a medium. Previously, ground radar measurements were made along the Earth-space path and compared to satellite beacon data that was transmitted to a ground station. In this paper, quantitative estimation of the attenuation along the propagation path is made via inter-comparisons of radar data taken from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR) and ground-based polarimetric radar observations. Theoretical relationships between the expected specific attenuation (k) of spaceborne measurements with ground-based measurements of reflectivity (Zh) and differential propagation phase shift (Kdp) are developed for various hydrometeors that could be present along the propagation path, which are used to estimate the two-way path-integrated attenuation (PIA) on the PR return echo. Resolution volume matching and alignment of the radar systems is performed, and a direct comparison of PR return echo with ground radar attenuation estimates is made directly on a beam-by-beam basis. The technique is validated using data collected from the TExas and Florida UNderflights (TEFLUN-B) experiment and the TRMM large Biosphere-Atmosphere experiment in Amazonia (LBA) campaign. Attenuation estimation derived from this method can be used for strategiC planning of communication systems for

Use of a W-band polarimeter to measure microphysical characteristics of clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Galloway, John Charles

1997-08-01

This dissertation presents W-Band measurements of the copolar correlation co-efficient and Doppler spectrum taken from the University of Wyoming King Air research airplane. These measurements demonstrate the utility of making W-Band polarimetric and Doppler spectrum measurements from an airborne platform in investigations of cloud microphysical properties. Comparison of copolar correlation coefficient measurements with aircraft in situ probe measurements verifies that polarimetric measurements indicate phase transitions, and hydrometeor alignment in ice clouds. Melting layers in clouds were measured by the W-Band system on board the King Air during 1992 and 1994. Both measurements established the use of the linear depolarization ratio, LDR, to locate the melting layer using an airborne W-Band system. The measurement during 1994 allowed direct comparison of the magnitude of the copolar correlation coefficient with the values of LDR. The relation between the measurements corresponds with a predicted relationship between the two parameters for observation of particles exhibiting isotropy in the plane of polarization. Measurements of needle crystals at horizontal and vertical incidence provided further evidence that the copolar correlation coefficient values agreed with the expected response from hydrometeors possessing a preferred alignment for the side looking case, and hydrometeors without a preferred alignment for the vertical incidence case. Observation of significant specific differential phase at vertical incidence, the first reported at W-Band, corresponded to a significant increase in differential reflectivity overhead, which was most likely produced by hydrometeor alignment driven by cloud electrification. Comparison of the drop size distributions estimated using the Doppler spectra with those measured by the wingtip probes on the King Air reveals that the radar system is better suited under some liquid cloud conditions to provide microphysical measurements

Remote Cloud Sensing Intensive Observation Period (RCS-IOP) millimeter-wave radar calibration and data intercomparison

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sekelsky, S.M.; Firda, J.M.; McIntosh, R.E. [Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)] [and others

1996-04-01

During April 1994, the University of Massachusetts (UMass) and the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) fielded two millimeter-wave atmospheric radars in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Remote Cloud Sensing Intensive Operation Period (RCS-IOP) experiment. The UMass Cloud Profiling Radar System (CPRS) operates simultaneously at 33.12 GHz and 94.92 GHz through a single antenna. The Penn State radar operates at 93.95 GHz and has separate transmitting and receiving antennas. The two systems were separated by approximately 75 meters and simultaneously observed a variety of cloud types at verticle incidence over the course of the experiment. This abstract presents some initial results from our calibration efforts. An absolute calibration of the UMass radar was made from radar measurements of a trihedral corner reflector, which has a known radar cross-section. A relative calibration of between the Penn State and UMass radars is made from the statistical comparison of zenith pointing measurements of low altitude liquid clouds. Attenuation is removed with the aid of radiosonde data, and the difference in the calibration between the UMass and Penn State radars is determined by comparing the ratio of 94-GHz and 95-GHz reflectivity values to a model that accounts for parallax effects of the two antennas used in the Penn State system.

CSU-CHILL Polarimetric Radar Measurements from a Severe Hail Storm in Eastern Colorado.

Science.gov (United States)

Hubbert, J.; Bringi, V. N.; Carey, L. D.; Bolen, S.

1998-08-01

Polarimetric radar measurements made by the recently upgraded CSU-CHILL radar system in a severe hailstorm are analyzed permitting for the first time the combined use of Zh, ZDR, linear depolarization ratio (LDR), KDP, and h to infer hydrometeor types. A chase van equipped for manual collection of hail, and instrumented with a rain gauge, intercepted the storm core for 50 min. The period of golfball-sized hail is easily distinguished by high LDR (greater than or equal to 18 dB), negative ZDR (less than or equal to 0.5 dB), and low h (less than or equal to 0.93) values near the surface. Rainfall accumulation over the entire event (about 40 mm) estimated using KDP is in excellent agreement with the rain gauge measurement. Limited dual-Doppler synthesis using the CSU-CHILL and Denver WSR-88D radars permit estimates of the horizontal convergence at altitudes less than 3 km above ground level (AGL) at 1747 and 1812 mountain daylight time (MDT). Locations of peak horizontal convergence at these times are centered on well-defined positive ZDR columns. Vertical sections of multiparameter radar data at 1812 MDT are interpreted in terms of hydrometeor type. In particular, an enhanced LDR `cap' area on top of the the positive ZDR column is interpreted as a region of mixed phase with large drops mixed with partially frozen and frozen hydrometeors. A positive KDP column on the the western fringe of the main updraft is inferred to be the result of drops (1-2 mm) shed by wet hailstones. Swaths of large hail at the surface (inferred from LDR signatures) and positive ZDR at 3.5 km AGL suggest that potential frozen drop embryos are favorably located for growth into large hailstones. Thin section analysis of a sample of the large hailstones shows that 30%-40% have frozen drop embryos.

New Cloud and Precipitation Research Avenues Enabled by low-cost Phased-array Radar Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Kollias, P.; Oue, M.; Fridlind, A. M.; Matsui, T.; McLaughlin, D. J.

2017-12-01

For over half a century, radars operating in a wide range of frequencies have been the primary source of observational insights of clouds and precipitation microphysics and dynamics and contributed to numerous significant advancements in the field of cloud and precipitation physics. The development of multi-wavelength and polarization diversity techniques has further strengthened the quality of microphysical and dynamical retrievals from radars and has assisted in overcoming some of the limitations imposed by the physics of scattering. Atmospheric radars have historically employed a mechanically-scanning dish antenna and their ability to point to, survey, and revisit specific points or regions in the atmosphere is limited by mechanical inertia. Electronically scanned, or phased-array, radars capable of high-speed, inertialess beam steering, have been available for several decades, but the cost of this technology has limited its use to military applications. During the last 10 years, lower power and lower-cost versions of electronically scanning radars have been developed, and this presents an attractive and affordable new tool for the atmospheric sciences. The operational and research communities are currently exploring phased array advantages in signal processing (i.e. beam multiplexing, improved clutter rejection, cross beam wind estimation, adaptive sensing) and science applications (i.e. tornadic storm morphology studies). Here, we will present some areas of atmospheric research where inertia-less radars with ability to provide rapid volume imaging offers the potential to advance cloud and precipitation research. We will discuss the added value of single phased-array radars as well as networks of these radars for several problems including: multi-Doppler wind retrieval techniques, cloud lifetime studies and aerosol-convection interactions. The performance of current (dish) and future (e-scan) radar systems for these atmospheric studies will be evaluated using

Multi-Frequency Polarimetric SAR Classification Based on Riemannian Manifold and Simultaneous Sparse Representation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fan Yang

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Normally, polarimetric SAR classification is a high-dimensional nonlinear mapping problem. In the realm of pattern recognition, sparse representation is a very efficacious and powerful approach. As classical descriptors of polarimetric SAR, covariance and coherency matrices are Hermitian semidefinite and form a Riemannian manifold. Conventional Euclidean metrics are not suitable for a Riemannian manifold, and hence, normal sparse representation classification cannot be applied to polarimetric SAR directly. This paper proposes a new land cover classification approach for polarimetric SAR. There are two principal novelties in this paper. First, a Stein kernel on a Riemannian manifold instead of Euclidean metrics, combined with sparse representation, is employed for polarimetric SAR land cover classification. This approach is named Stein-sparse representation-based classification (SRC. Second, using simultaneous sparse representation and reasonable assumptions of the correlation of representation among different frequency bands, Stein-SRC is generalized to simultaneous Stein-SRC for multi-frequency polarimetric SAR classification. These classifiers are assessed using polarimetric SAR images from the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR sensor of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL and the Electromagnetics Institute Synthetic Aperture Radar (EMISAR sensor of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU. Experiments on single-band and multi-band data both show that these approaches acquire more accurate classification results in comparison to many conventional and advanced classifiers.

Comparing and Merging Observation Data from Ka-Band Cloud Radar, C-Band Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave Radar and Ceilometer Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liping Liu

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Field experiment in South China was undertaken to improve understanding of cloud and precipitation properties. Measurements of the vertical structures of non-precipitating and precipitating clouds were obtained using passive and active remote sensing equipment: a Ka-band cloud radar (CR system, a C-band frequency modulated continuous wave vertical pointing radar (CVPR, a microwave radiometer and a laser ceilometer (CEIL. CR plays a key role in high-level cloud observation, whereas CVPR is important for observing low- and mid-level clouds and heavy precipitation. CEIL helps us diminish the effects of “clear-sky” in the planetary boundary layer. The experiment took place in Longmen, Guangdong Province, China from May to September of 2016. This study focuses on evaluating the ability of the two radars to deliver consistent observation data and develops an algorithm to merge the CR, CVPR and CEIL data. Cloud echo base, thickness, frequency of observed cloud types and reflectivity vertical distributions are analyzed in the radar data. Comparisons between the collocated data sets show that reflectivity biases between the CR three operating modes are less than 2 dB. The averaged difference between CR and CVPR reflectivity can be reduced with attenuation correction to 3.57 dB from the original 4.82 dB. No systemic biases were observed between velocity data collected in the three CR modes and CVPR. The corrected CR reflectivity and velocity data were then merged with the CVPR data and CEIL data to fill in the gaps during the heavy precipitation periods and reduce the effects of Bragg scattering and fog on cloud observations in the boundary layer. Meanwhile, the merging of velocity data with different Nyquist velocities and resolutions diminishes velocity folding to provide fine-grain information about cloud and precipitation dynamics. The three daily periods in which low-level clouds tended to occur were at sunrise, noon and sunset and large

Development of Spaceborne Radar Simulator by NICT and JAXA using JMA Cloud-resolving Model

Science.gov (United States)

Kubota, T.; Eito, H.; Aonashi, K.; Hashimoto, A.; Iguchi, T.; Hanado, H.; Shimizu, S.; Yoshida, N.; Oki, R.

2009-12-01

We are developing synthetic spaceborne radar data toward a simulation of the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) aboard the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core-satellite. Our purposes are a production of test-bed data for higher level DPR algorithm developers, in addition to a diagnosis of a cloud resolving model (CRM). To make the synthetic data, we utilize the CRM by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA-NHM) (Ikawa and Saito 1991, Saito et al. 2006, 2007), and the spaceborne radar simulation algorithm by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) named as the Integrated Satellite Observation Simulator for Radar (ISOSIM-Radar). The ISOSIM-Radar simulates received power data in a field of view of the spaceborne radar with consideration to a scan angle of the radar (Oouchi et al. 2002, Kubota et al. 2009). The received power data are computed with gaseous and hydrometeor attenuations taken into account. The backscattering and extinction coefficients are calculated assuming the Mie approximation for all species. The dielectric constants for solid particles are computed by the Maxwell-Garnett model (Bohren and Battan 1982). Drop size distributions are treated in accordance with those of the JMA-NHM. We assume a spherical sea surface, a Gaussian antenna pattern, and 49 antenna beam directions for scan angles from -17 to 17 deg. in the PR. In this study, we report the diagnosis of the JMA-NHM with reference to the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) and CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) using the ISOSIM-Radar from the view of comparisons in cloud microphysics schemes of the JMA-NHM. We tested three kinds of explicit bulk microphysics schemes based on Lin et al. (1983), that is, three-ice 1-moment scheme, three-ice 2-moment scheme (Eito and Aonashi 2009), and newly developed four-ice full 2-moment scheme (Hashimoto 2008). The hydrometeor species considered here are rain, graupel

Polsar Land Cover Classification Based on Hidden Polarimetric Features in Rotation Domain and Svm Classifier

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, C.-S.; Chen, S.-W.; Li, Y.-Z.; Xiao, S.-P.

2017-09-01

Land cover classification is an important application for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data utilization. Rollinvariant polarimetric features such as H / Ani / text-decoration: overline">α / Span are commonly adopted in PolSAR land cover classification. However, target orientation diversity effect makes PolSAR images understanding and interpretation difficult. Only using the roll-invariant polarimetric features may introduce ambiguity in the interpretation of targets' scattering mechanisms and limit the followed classification accuracy. To address this problem, this work firstly focuses on hidden polarimetric feature mining in the rotation domain along the radar line of sight using the recently reported uniform polarimetric matrix rotation theory and the visualization and characterization tool of polarimetric coherence pattern. The former rotates the acquired polarimetric matrix along the radar line of sight and fully describes the rotation characteristics of each entry of the matrix. Sets of new polarimetric features are derived to describe the hidden scattering information of the target in the rotation domain. The latter extends the traditional polarimetric coherence at a given rotation angle to the rotation domain for complete interpretation. A visualization and characterization tool is established to derive new polarimetric features for hidden information exploration. Then, a classification scheme is developed combing both the selected new hidden polarimetric features in rotation domain and the commonly used roll-invariant polarimetric features with a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Comparison experiments based on AIRSAR and multi-temporal UAVSAR data demonstrate that compared with the conventional classification scheme which only uses the roll-invariant polarimetric features, the proposed classification scheme achieves both higher classification accuracy and better robustness. For AIRSAR data, the overall classification

POLSAR LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION BASED ON HIDDEN POLARIMETRIC FEATURES IN ROTATION DOMAIN AND SVM CLASSIFIER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C.-S. Tao

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Land cover classification is an important application for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR data utilization. Rollinvariant polarimetric features such as H / Ani / α / Span are commonly adopted in PolSAR land cover classification. However, target orientation diversity effect makes PolSAR images understanding and interpretation difficult. Only using the roll-invariant polarimetric features may introduce ambiguity in the interpretation of targets’ scattering mechanisms and limit the followed classification accuracy. To address this problem, this work firstly focuses on hidden polarimetric feature mining in the rotation domain along the radar line of sight using the recently reported uniform polarimetric matrix rotation theory and the visualization and characterization tool of polarimetric coherence pattern. The former rotates the acquired polarimetric matrix along the radar line of sight and fully describes the rotation characteristics of each entry of the matrix. Sets of new polarimetric features are derived to describe the hidden scattering information of the target in the rotation domain. The latter extends the traditional polarimetric coherence at a given rotation angle to the rotation domain for complete interpretation. A visualization and characterization tool is established to derive new polarimetric features for hidden information exploration. Then, a classification scheme is developed combing both the selected new hidden polarimetric features in rotation domain and the commonly used roll-invariant polarimetric features with a support vector machine (SVM classifier. Comparison experiments based on AIRSAR and multi-temporal UAVSAR data demonstrate that compared with the conventional classification scheme which only uses the roll-invariant polarimetric features, the proposed classification scheme achieves both higher classification accuracy and better robustness. For AIRSAR data, the overall classification accuracy

Polarimetric scattering and SAR information retrieval

CERN Document Server

Jin, Ya-Qiu

2013-01-01

Taking an innovative look at Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), this practical reference fully covers new developments in SAR and its various methodologies and enables readers to interpret SAR imagery An essential reference on polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), this book uses scattering theory and radiative transfer theory as a basis for its treatment of topics. It is organized to include theoretical scattering models and SAR data analysis techniques, and presents cutting-edge research on theoretical modelling of terrain surface. The book includes quantitative app

Probabilistic discrimination between liquid rainfall events, hailstorms, biomass burning and industrial fires from C-Band Radar Polarimetric Variables

Science.gov (United States)

Valencia, J. M.; Sepúlveda, J.; Hoyos, C.; Herrera, L.

2017-12-01

Characterization and identification of fire and hailstorm events using weather radar data in a tropical complex topography region is an important task in risk management and agriculture. Polarimetric variables from a C-Band Dual polarization weather radar have potential uses in particle classification, due to the relationship their sensitivity to shape, spatial orientation, size and fall behavior of particles. In this sense, three forest fires and two chemical fires were identified for the Áburra Valley regions. Measurements were compared between each fire event type and with typical data radar retrievals for liquid precipitation events. Results of this analysis show different probability density functions for each type of event according to the particles present in them. This is very important and useful result for early warning systems to avoid precipitation false alarms during fire events within the study region, as well as for the early detection of fires using radar retrievals in remote cases. The comparative methodology is extended to hailstorm cases. Complementary sensors like laser precipitation sensors (LPM) disdrometers and meteorological stations were used to select dates of solid precipitation occurrence. Then, in this dates weather radar data variables were taken in pixels surrounding the stations and solid precipitation polar values were statistically compared with liquid precipitation values. Spectrum precipitation measured by LPM disdrometer helps to define typical features like particles number, fall velocities and diameters for both precipitation types. In addition, to achieve a complete hailstorm characterization, other meteorological variables were analyzed: wind field from meteorological stations and radar wind profiler, profiling data from Micro Rain Radar (MRR), and thermodynamic data from a microwave radiometer.

Radar Polarimetry: Theory, Analysis, and Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hubbert, John Clark

The fields of radar polarimetry and optical polarimetry are compared. The mathematics of optic polarimetry are formulated such that a local right handed coordinate system is always used to describe the polarization states. This is not done in radar polarimetry. Radar optimum polarization theory is redeveloped within the framework of optical polarimetry. The radar optimum polarizations and optic eigenvalues of common scatterers are compared. In addition a novel definition of an eigenpolarization state is given and the accompanying mathematics is developed. The polarization response calculated using optic, radar and novel definitions is presented for a variety of scatterers. Polarimetric transformation provides a means to characterize scatters in more than one polarization basis. Polarimetric transformation for an ensemble of scatters is obtained via two methods: (1) the covariance method and (2) the instantaneous scattering matrix (ISM) method. The covariance method is used to relate the mean radar parameters of a +/-45^circ linear polarization basis to those of a horizontal and vertical polarization basis. In contrast the ISM method transforms the individual time samples. Algorithms are developed for transforming the time series from fully polarimetric radars that switch between orthogonal states. The transformed time series are then used to calculate the mean radar parameters of interest. It is also shown that propagation effects do not need to be removed from the ISM's before transformation. The techniques are demonstrated using data collected by POLDIRAD, the German Aerospace Research Establishment's fully polarimetric C-band radar. The differential phase observed between two copolar states, Psi_{CO}, is composed of two phases: (1) differential propagation phase, phi_{DP}, and (2) differential backscatter phase, delta. The slope of phi_{DP } with range is an estimate of the specific differential phase, K_{DP}. The process of estimating K_{DP} is complicated when

Island based radar and microwave radiometer measurements of stratus cloud parameters during the Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Frisch, A.S. [Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States); Fairall, C.W.; Snider, J.B. [NOAA Environmental Technology Lab., Boulder, CO (United States); Lenshow, D.H.; Mayer, S.D. [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

1996-04-01

During the Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX) in June 1992, simultaneous measurements were made with a vertically pointing cloud sensing radar and a microwave radiometer. The radar measurements are used to estimate stratus cloud drizzle and turbulence parameters. In addition, with the microwave radiometer measurements of reflectivity, we estimated the profiles of cloud liquid water and effective radius. We used radar data for computation of vertical profiles of various drizzle parameters such as droplet concentration, modal radius, and spread. A sample of these results is shown in Figure 1. In addition, in non-drizzle clouds, with the radar and radiometer we can estimate the verticle profiles of stratus cloud parameters such as liquid water concentration and effective radius. This is accomplished by assuming a droplet distribution with droplet number concentration and width constant with height.

Intercomparison of Vertical Structure of Storms Revealed by Ground-Based (NMQ and Spaceborne Radars (CloudSat-CPR and TRMM-PR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Veronica M. Fall

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Spaceborne radars provide great opportunities to investigate the vertical structure of clouds and precipitation. Two typical spaceborne radars for such a study are the W-band Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR and Ku-band Precipitation Radar (PR, which are onboard NASA’s CloudSat and TRMM satellites, respectively. Compared to S-band ground-based radars, they have distinct scattering characteristics for different hydrometeors in clouds and precipitation. The combination of spaceborne and ground-based radar observations can help in the identification of hydrometeors and improve the radar-based quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE. This study analyzes the vertical structure of the 18 January, 2009 storm using data from the CloudSat CPR, TRMM PR, and a NEXRAD-based National Mosaic and Multisensor QPE (NMQ system. Microphysics above, within, and below the melting layer are studied through an intercomparison of multifrequency measurements. Hydrometeors’ type and their radar scattering characteristics are analyzed. Additionally, the study of the vertical profile of reflectivity (VPR reveals the brightband properties in the cold-season precipitation and its effect on the radar-based QPE. In all, the joint analysis of spaceborne and ground-based radar data increases the understanding of the vertical structure of storm systems and provides a good insight into the microphysical modeling for weather forecasts.

Scanning ARM Cloud Radars. Part II: Data Quality Control and Processing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kollias, Pavlos; Jo, Ieng; Borque, Paloma; Tatarevic, Aleksandra; Lamer, Katia; Bharadwaj, Nitin; Widener, Kevin B.; Johnson, Karen L.; Clothiaux, Eugene E.

2014-03-01

The Scanning ARM Cloud Radars (SACR’s) are the primary instruments for documenting the four-dimensional structure and evolution of clouds within a 20-30 km radius from the ARM fixed and mobile sites. Here, the post-processing of the calibrated SACR measurements is discussed. First, a feature mask algorithm that objectively determines the presence of significant radar returns is described. The feature mask algorithm is based on the statistical properties of radar receiver noise. It accounts for atmospheric emission and is applicable even for SACR profiles with few or no signal-free range gates. Using the nearest-in-time atmospheric sounding, the SACR radar reflectivities are corrected for gaseous attenuation (water vapor and oxygen) using a line-by-line absorption model. Despite having a high pulse repetition frequency, the SACR has a narrow Nyquist velocity limit and thus Doppler velocity folding is commonly observed. An unfolding algorithm that makes use of a first guess for the true Doppler velocity using horizontal wind measurements from the nearest sounding is described. The retrieval of the horizontal wind profile from the HS-RHI SACR scan observations and/or nearest sounding is described. The retrieved horizontal wind profile can be used to adaptively configure SACR scan strategies that depend on wind direction. Several remaining challenges are discussed, including the removal of insect and second-trip echoes. The described algorithms significantly enhance SACR data quality and constitute an important step towards the utilization of SACR measurements for cloud research.

Scanning Radar Investigations to Characterize Cloud and Precipitation Processes for ASR

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Venkatachalam, Chandrasekar [Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Cooperative Inst. for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA)

2016-12-17

The project conducted investigations in the following areas related to scanning radar retrievals: a) Development for Cloud drizzle separation studies for the ENA site based on Doppler Spectra b) Advanced radar retrieval for the SGP site c) Characterizing falling snow using multifrequency dual-polarization measurements d) BAECC field experiment. More details about these investigations can be found within each subtopic within the report.

Aspects of Radar Polarimetry

OpenAIRE

LÜNEBURG, Ernst

2002-01-01

This contribution is a tutorial introduction to the phenomenological theory of radar polarimetry for the coherent scatter case emphasizing monostatic backscattering and forward scattering (transmission). Characteristic similarities and differences between radar polarimetry and optical polarimetry and the role of linear and antilinear operators (time-reversal) are pointed out and typical polarimetric invariants are identified.

Scanning ARM Cloud Radars Part II. Data Quality Control and Processing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kollias, Pavlos [McGill Univ., Montreal, QC (Canada); Jo, Ieng [McGill Univ., Montreal, QC (Canada); Borque, Paloma [McGill Univ., Montreal, QC (Canada); Tatarevic, Aleksandra [McGill Univ., Montreal, QC (Canada); Lamer, Katia [McGill Univ., Montreal, QC (Canada); Bharadwaj, Nitin [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Widener, Kevin B. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Johnson, Karen [Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Clothiaux, Eugene E. [Pennsylvania State Univ., State College, PA (United States)

2013-10-04

The Scanning ARM Cloud Radars (SACR’s) are the primary instruments for documenting the four-dimensional structure and evolution of clouds within a 20-30 km radius from the ARM fixed and mobile sites. Here, the post-processing of the calibrated SACR measurements is discussed. First, a feature mask algorithm that objectively determines the presence of significant radar returns is described. The feature mask algorithm is based on the statistical properties of radar receiver noise. It accounts for atmospheric emission and is applicable even for SACR profiles with few or no signal-free range gates. Using the nearest-in-time atmospheric sounding, the SACR radar reflectivities are corrected for gaseous attenuation (water vapor and oxygen) using a line-by-line absorption model. Despite having a high pulse repetition frequency, the SACR has a narrow Nyquist velocity limit and thus Doppler velocity folding is commonly observed. An unfolding algorithm that makes use of a first guess for the true Doppler velocity using horizontal wind measurements from the nearest sounding is described. The retrieval of the horizontal wind profile from the Hemispherical Sky – Range Height Indicator SACR scan observations and/or nearest sounding is described. The retrieved horizontal wind profile can be used to adaptively configure SACR scan strategies that depend on wind direction. Several remaining challenges are discussed, including the removal of insect and second-trip echoes. The described algorithms significantly enhance SACR data quality and constitute an important step towards the utilization of SACR measurements for cloud research.

Retrievals of Ice Cloud Microphysical Properties of Deep Convective Systems using Radar Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, J.; Dong, X.; Xi, B.; Wang, J.; Homeyer, C. R.

2015-12-01

This study presents innovative algorithms for retrieving ice cloud microphysical properties of Deep Convective Systems (DCSs) using Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) reflectivity and newly derived empirical relationships from aircraft in situ measurements in Wang et al. (2015) during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E). With composite gridded NEXRAD radar reflectivity, four-dimensional (space-time) ice cloud microphysical properties of DCSs are retrieved, which is not possible from either in situ sampling at a single altitude or from vertical pointing radar measurements. For this study, aircraft in situ measurements provide the best-estimated ice cloud microphysical properties for validating the radar retrievals. Two statistical comparisons between retrieved and aircraft in situ measured ice microphysical properties are conducted from six selected cases during MC3E. For the temporal-averaged method, the averaged ice water content (IWC) and median mass diameter (Dm) from aircraft in situ measurements are 0.50 g m-3 and 1.51 mm, while the retrievals from radar reflectivity have negative biases of 0.12 g m-3 (24%) and 0.02 mm (1.3%) with correlations of 0.71 and 0.48, respectively. For the spatial-averaged method, the IWC retrievals are closer to the aircraft results (0.51 vs. 0.47 g m-3) with a positive bias of 8.5%, whereas the Dm retrievals are larger than the aircraft results (1.65 mm vs. 1.51 mm) with a positive bias of 9.3%. The retrieved IWCs decrease from ~0.6 g m-3 at 5 km to ~0.15 g m-3 at 13 km, and Dm values decrease from ~2 mm to ~0.7 mm at the same levels. In general, the aircraft in situ measured IWC and Dm values at each level are within one standard derivation of retrieved properties. Good agreements between microphysical properties measured from aircraft and retrieved from radar reflectivity measurements indicate the reasonable accuracy of our retrievals.

The Earthcare Cloud Profiling Radar, its PFM development status (Conference Presentation)

Science.gov (United States)

Nakatsuka, Hirotaka; Tomita, Eichi; Aida, Yoshihisa; Seki, Yoshihiro; Okada, Kazuyuki; Maruyama, Kenta; Ishii, Yasuyuki; Tomiyama, Nobuhiro; Ohno, Yuichi; Horie, Hiroaki; Sato, Kenji

2016-10-01

The Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission is joint mission between Europe and Japan for the launch year of 2018. Mission objective is to improve scientific understanding of cloud-aerosol-radiation interactions that is one of the biggest uncertain factors for numerical climate and weather predictions. The EarthCARE spacecraft equips four instruments such as an ultra violet lidar (ATLID), a cloud profiling radar (CPR), a broadband radiometer (BBR), and a multi-spectral imager (MSI) and perform complete synergy observation to observe aerosols, clouds and their interactions simultaneously from the orbit. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is responsible for development of the CPR in this EarthCARE mission and the CPR will be the first space-borne W-band Doppler radar. The CPR is defined with minimum radar sensitivity of -35dBz (6dB better than current space-borne cloud radar, i.e. CloudSat, NASA), radiometric accuracy of 2.7 dB, and Doppler velocity measurement accuracy of less than 1.3 m/s. These specifications require highly accurate pointing technique in orbit and high power source with large antenna dish. JAXA and National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have been jointly developed this CPR to meet these strict requirements so far and then achieved the development such as new CFRP flex-core structure, long life extended interaction klystron, low loss quasi optical feed technique, and so on. Through these development successes, CPR development phase has been progressed to critical design phase. In addition, new ground calibration technique is also being progressed for launch of EarthCARE/CPR. The unique feature of EarthCARE CPR is vertical Doppler velocity measurement capability. Vertical Doppler velocity measurement is very attractive function from the science point of view, because vertical motions of cloud particles are related with cloud microphysics and dynamics. However, from engineering point of

Ice sheet anisotropy measured with polarimetric ice sounding radar

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall, Jørgen

2010-01-01

For polar ice sheets, valuable stress and strain information can be deduced from crystal orientation fabrics (COF) and their prevailing c-axis alignment. Polarimetric radio echo sounding is a promising technique to measure the anisotropic electromagnetic propagation and reflection properties asso...

Reconfigurable digital receiver design and application for instantaneous polarimetric measurement

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, Z.; Krasnov, O.A.; Babur, G.P.; Ligthart, L.P.; Van der Zwan, F.

2011-01-01

This paper presents the development of a reconfigurable receiver to undertake challenging signal processing tasks for a novel polarimetric radar system. The field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)-based digital receiver samples incoming signals at intermediate frequency (IF) and processes signals

Agricultural Monitoring in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, Using Multi-Temporal Polarimetric RADARSAT-2 Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeffrey W. Cable

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to analyze how changes in acquisition time and incidence angle affect various C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR polarimetric intensities, co-polarized phase information, polarimetric response plots and decomposition parameters for various crops typical of Northern Ontario, Canada. We examine how these parameters may be used to monitor the growth stages of five common cash crops, namely, barley (Hordeum vulgare, canola (Brassica napus, oat (Avena sativa, soybean (Glycine max and wheat (Triticum spp.. In total, nine RADARSAT-2 polarimetric images were analyzed across a 14-week period beginning in June and ending in September 2011 using two incidence angles of approximately 26° and 41°. As expected, the backscatter intensities for all targets were found to show a higher response when acquired at the steeper incidence angle (26°. All cash crop targets showed a rise and fall in backscatter response over the course of the growing season, coinciding with changing growth stages. Slight phase differences were observed for cereal crops, possibly due to one of the polarizations penetrating between the rows allowing double-bounce to occur. The polarimetric response plots and decompositions offered insight into the scattering mechanisms of each crop type, generally showing an increase in volume scattering as the crops reached maturity. Specifically, the contributions of the crops increased towards the volume scattering component and zones 4 and 2, as the crops matured in regards to the Freeman-Durden and Cloude-Pottier decompositions respectively. Overall, soybean and canola showed a more similar response in comparison to the cereal cash crops. Although the study focused on Northern Ontario, it is anticipated that these results would be relevant in investigations of multi-temporal RADARSAT-2 for agricultural zones with similar crop types.

Polarimetric SAR interferometry applied to land ice: modeling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall, Jørgen; Papathanassiou, Konstantinos; Skriver, Henning

2004-01-01

This paper introduces a few simple scattering models intended for the application of polarimetric SAR interfer-ometry to land ice. The principal aim is to eliminate the penetration bias hampering ice sheet elevation maps generated with single-channel SAR interferometry. The polarimetric coherent...... scattering models are similar to the oriented-volume model and the random-volume-over-ground model used in vegetation studies, but the ice models are adapted to the different geometry of land ice. Also, due to compaction, land ice is not uniform; a fact that must be taken into account for large penetration...... depths. The validity of the scattering models is examined using L-band polarimetric interferometric SAR data acquired with the EMISAR system over an ice cap located in the percolation zone of the Greenland ice sheet. Radar reflectors were deployed on the ice surface prior to the data acquisition in order...

A NEW SAR CLASSIFICATION SCHEME FOR SEDIMENTS ON INTERTIDAL FLATS BASED ON MULTI-FREQUENCY POLARIMETRIC SAR IMAGERY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Wang

2017-11-01

Full Text Available We present a new classification scheme for muddy and sandy sediments on exposed intertidal flats, which is based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR data, and use ALOS-2 (L-band, Radarsat-2 (C-band and TerraSAR-X (X-band fully polarimetric SAR imagery to demonstrate its effectiveness. Four test sites on the German North Sea coast were chosen, which represent typical surface compositions of different sediments, vegetation, and habitats, and of which a large amount of SAR is used for our analyses. Both Freeman-Durden and Cloude-Pottier polarimetric decomposition are utilized, and an additional descriptor called Double-Bounce Eigenvalue Relative Difference (DERD is introduced into the feature sets instead of the original polarimetric intensity channels. The classification is conducted following Random Forest theory, and the results are verified using ground truth data from field campaigns and an existing classification based on optical imagery. In addition, the use of Kennaugh elements for classification purposes is demonstrated using both fully and dual-polarization multi-frequency and multi-temporal SAR data. Our results show that the proposed classification scheme can be applied for the discrimination of muddy and sandy sediments using L-, C-, and X-band SAR images, while SAR imagery acquired at short wavelengths (C- and X-band can also be used to detect more detailed features such as bivalve beds on intertidal flats.

Vertical Cloud Climatology During TC4 Derived from High-Altitude Aircraft Merged Lidar and Radar Profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Hlavka, Dennis; Tian, Lin; Hart, William; Li, Lihua; McGill, Matthew; Heymsfield, Gerald

2009-01-01

Aircraft lidar works by shooting laser pulses toward the earth and recording the return time and intensity of any of the light returning to the aircraft after scattering off atmospheric particles and/or the Earth s surface. The scattered light signatures can be analyzed to tell the exact location of cloud and aerosol layers and, with the aid of a few optical assumptions, can be analyzed to retrieve estimates of optical properties such as atmospheric transparency. Radar works in a similar fashion except it sends pulses toward earth at a much larger wavelength than lidar. Radar records the return time and intensity of cloud or rain reflection returning to the aircraft. Lidar can measure scatter from optically thin cirrus and aerosol layers whose particles are too small for the radar to detect. Radar can provide reflection profiles through thick cloud layers of larger particles that lidar cannot penetrate. Only after merging the two instrument products can accurate measurements of the locations of all layers in the full atmospheric column be achieved. Accurate knowledge of the vertical distribution of clouds is important information for understanding the Earth/atmosphere radiative balance and for improving weather/climate forecast models. This paper describes one such merged data set developed from the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) experiment based in Costa Rica in July-August 2007 using the nadir viewing Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) and the Cloud Radar System (CRS) on board the NASA ER-2 aircraft. Statistics were developed concerning cloud probability through the atmospheric column and frequency of the number of cloud layers. These statistics were calculated for the full study area, four sub-regions, and over land compared to over ocean across all available flights. The results are valid for the TC4 experiment only, as preferred cloud patterns took priority during mission planning. The TC4 Study Area was a very cloudy region, with cloudy

Exploring the Effects of Cloud Vertical Structure on Cloud Microphysical Retrievals based on Polarized Reflectances

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, D. J.; Zhang, Z.; Platnick, S. E.; Ackerman, A. S.; Cornet, C.; Baum, B. A.

2013-12-01

A polarized cloud reflectance simulator was developed by coupling an LES cloud model with a polarized radiative transfer model to assess the capabilities of polarimetric cloud retrievals. With future remote sensing campaigns like NASA's Aerosols/Clouds/Ecosystems (ACE) planning to feature advanced polarimetric instruments it is important for the cloud remote sensing community to understand the retrievable information available and the related systematic/methodical limitations. The cloud retrieval simulator we have developed allows us to probe these important questions in a realistically relevant test bed. Our simulator utilizes a polarized adding-doubling radiative transfer model and an LES cloud field from a DHARMA simulation (Ackerman et al. 2004) with cloud properties based on the stratocumulus clouds observed during the DYCOMS-II field campaign. In this study we will focus on how the vertical structure of cloud microphysics can influence polarized cloud effective radius retrievals. Numerous previous studies have explored how retrievals based on total reflectance are affected by cloud vertical structure (Platnick 2000, Chang and Li 2002) but no such studies about the effects of vertical structure on polarized retrievals exist. Unlike the total cloud reflectance, which is predominantly multiply scattered light, the polarized reflectance is primarily the result of singly scattered photons. Thus the polarized reflectance is sensitive to only the uppermost region of the cloud (tau~influencer on the microphysical development of cloud droplets, can be potentially studied with polarimetric retrievals.

Advanced Architectures for Modern Weather/Multifunction Radars

Science.gov (United States)

2017-03-01

Radar (PAIR) system, a mobile , C-band, active phased array with multiple digital beams for imaging (under development). The digital transceiver... backend from Horus is also being used to drive row-based analog subarrays of the future Polarimetric Atmospheric Imaging Radar (PAIR, Fig. 6), which is

Analysis of Dual- and Full-Circular Polarimetric SAR Modes for Rice Phenology Monitoring: An Experimental Investigation through Ground-Based Measurements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuta Izumi

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Circularly polarized synthetic aperture radar (CP-SAR is known to be insensitive to polarization mismatch losses caused by the Faraday rotation effect and antenna misalignment. Additionally, the dual-circular polarimetric (DCP mode has proven to have more polarimetric information than that of the corresponding mode of linear polarization, i.e., the dual-linear polarimetric (DLP mode. Owing to these benefits, this paper investigates the feasibility of CP-SAR for rice monitoring. A ground-based CP-radar system was exploited, and C-band anechoic chamber data of a self-cultivated Japanese rice paddy were acquired from germination to ripening stages. Temporal variations of polarimetric observables derived from full-circular polarimetric (FCP and DCP as well as synthetically generated DLP data are analyzed and assessed with regard to their effectiveness in phenology retrieval. Among different observations, the H / α ¯ plane and triangle plots obtained by three scattering components (surface, double-bounce, and volume scattering for both the FCP and DCP modes are confirmed to have reasonable capability in discriminating the relevant intervals of rice growth.

Discrimination of Oil Slicks and Lookalikes in Polarimetric SAR Images Using CNN

OpenAIRE

Guo, Hao; Wu, Danni; An, Jubai

2017-01-01

Oil slicks and lookalikes (e.g., plant oil and oil emulsion) all appear as dark areas in polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and are highly heterogeneous, so it is very difficult to use a single feature that can allow classification of dark objects in polarimetric SAR images as oil slicks or lookalikes. We established multi-feature fusion to support the discrimination of oil slicks and lookalikes. In the paper, simple discrimination analysis is used to rationalize a preferred f...

Effect of Beam Scanning on Target Polarization Scattering Matrix Observed by Fully Polarimetric Phased-array Radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Mianquan

2016-04-01

Full Text Available The polarization feature of a fully Polarimetric Phased-Array Radar (PPAR antenna varies according to the beam-scanning angle, thereby introducing two problems on the target Polarization Scattering Matrix (PSM measurement. First, the antenna polarization basis is defined within the vertical cross-section of an electromagnetic wave propagation direction, and the polarization basis of each beam direction angle is not identical, resulting in the PSM of a fixed-posture target observed by PPAR being not identical for different beam-scanning angles. Second, the cross polarization of the PPAR antenna increases with increasing beamscanning angle, resulting in a crosstalk among the elements of PSM observed by PPAR. This study focuses on the analysis of the abovementioned two aspects of the effect of beam scanning on target PSM observed by PPAR. The results will establish a more accurate observation of the equation for the precision PSM measurement of PPAR.

The Status of the ACRF Millimeter Wave Cloud Radars (MMCRs), the Path Forward for Future MMCR Upgrades, the Concept of 3D Volume Imaging Radar and the UAV Radar

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

P Kollias; MA Miller; KB Widener; RT Marchand; TP Ackerman

2005-12-30

The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) operates millimeter wavelength cloud radars (MMCRs) in several climatological regimes. The MMCRs, are the primary observing tool for quantifying the properties of nearly all radiatively important clouds over the ACRF sites. The first MMCR was installed at the ACRF Southern Great Plains (SGP) site nine years ago and its original design can be traced to the early 90s. Since then, several MMCRs have been deployed at the ACRF sites, while no significant hardware upgrades have been performed. Recently, a two-stage upgrade (first C-40 Digital Signal Processors [DSP]-based, and later the PC-Integrated Radar AcQuisition System [PIRAQ-III] digital receiver) of the MMCR signal-processing units was completed. Our future MMCR related goals are: 1) to have a cloud radar system that continues to have high reliability and uptime and 2) to suggest potential improvements that will address increased sensitivity needs, superior sampling and low cost maintenance of the MMCRs. The Traveling Wave Tube (TWT) technology, the frequency (35-GHz), the radio frequency (RF) layout, antenna, the calibration and radar control procedure and the environmental enclosure of the MMCR remain assets for our ability to detect the profile of hydrometeors at all heights in the troposphere at the ACRF sites.

P-band radar ice sounding in Antarctica

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall, Jørgen; Kusk, Anders; Kristensen, Steen Savstrup

2012-01-01

In February 2011, the Polarimetric Airborne Radar Ice Sounder (POLARIS) was flown in Antarctica in order to assess the feasibility of a potential space-based radar ice sounding mission. The campaign has demonstrated that the basal return is detectable in areas with up to 3 km thick cold ice, in a...

Polarimetric SAR Image Classification Using Multiple-feature Fusion and Ensemble Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sun Xun

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we propose a supervised classification algorithm for Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR images using multiple-feature fusion and ensemble learning. First, we extract different polarimetric features, including extended polarimetric feature space, Hoekman, Huynen, H/alpha/A, and fourcomponent scattering features of PolSAR images. Next, we randomly select two types of features each time from all feature sets to guarantee the reliability and diversity of later ensembles and use a support vector machine as the basic classifier for predicting classification results. Finally, we concatenate all prediction probabilities of basic classifiers as the final feature representation and employ the random forest method to obtain final classification results. Experimental results at the pixel and region levels show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Change Detection with Polarimetric SAR Imagery for Nuclear Verification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Canty, M.

2015-01-01

This paper investigates the application of multivariate statistical change detection with high-resolution polarimetric SAR imagery acquired from commercial satellite platforms for observation and verification of nuclear activities. A prototype software tool comprising a processing chain starting from single look complex (SLC) multitemporal data through to change detection maps is presented. Multivariate change detection algorithms applied to polarimetric SAR data are not common. This is because, up until recently, not many researchers or practitioners have had access to polarimetric data. However with the advent of several spaceborne polarimetric SAR instruments such as the Japanese ALOS, the Canadian Radarsat-2, the German TerraSAR-X, the Italian COSMO-SkyMed missions and the European Sentinal SAR platform, the situation has greatly improved. There is now a rich source of weather-independent satellite radar data which can be exploited for Nuclear Safeguards purposes. The method will also work for univariate data, that is, it is also applicable to scalar or single polarimetric SAR data. The change detection procedure investigated here exploits the complex Wishart distribution of dual and quad polarimetric imagery in look-averaged covariance matrix format in order to define a per-pixel change/no-change hypothesis test. It includes approximations for the probability distribution of the test statistic, and so permits quantitative significance levels to be quoted for change pixels. The method has been demonstrated previously with polarimetric images from the airborne EMISAR sensor, but is applied here for the first time to satellite platforms. In addition, an improved multivariate method is used to estimate the so-called equivalent number of looks (ENL), which is a critical parameter of the hypothesis test. (author)

Phased Array Radar Network Experiment for Severe Weather

Science.gov (United States)

Ushio, T.; Kikuchi, H.; Mega, T.; Yoshikawa, E.; Mizutani, F.; Takahashi, N.

2017-12-01

Phased Array Weather Radar (PAWR) was firstly developed in 2012 by Osaka University and Toshiba under a grant of NICT using the Digital Beamforming Technique, and showed a impressive thunderstorm behavior with 30 second resolution. After that development, second PAWR was installed in Kobe city about 60 km away from the first PAWR site, and Tokyo Metropolitan University, Osaka Univeristy, Toshiba and the Osaka Local Government started a new project to develop the Osaka Urban Demonstration Network. The main sensor of the Osaka Network is a 2-node Phased Array Radar Network and lightning location system. Data products that are created both in local high performance computer and Toshiba Computer Cloud, include single and multi-radar data, vector wind, quantitative precipitation estimation, VIL, nowcasting, lightning location and analysis. Each radar node is calibarated by the baloon measurement and through the comparison with the GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement)/ DPR (Dual Frequency Space borne Radar) within 1 dB. The attenuated radar reflectivities obtained by the Phased Array Radar Network at X band are corrected based on the bayesian scheme proposed in Shimamura et al. [2016]. The obtained high resolution (every 30 seconds/ 100 elevation angles) 3D reflectivity and rain rate fields are used to nowcast the surface rain rate up to 30 minutes ahead. These new products are transferred to Osaka Local Government in operational mode and evaluated by several section in Osaka Prefecture. Furthermore, a new Phased Array Radar with polarimetric function has been developed in 2017, and will be operated in the fiscal year of 2017. In this presentation, Phased Array Radar, network architecuture, processing algorithm, evalution of the social experiment and first Multi-Prameter Phased Array Radar experiment are presented.

A Fast Synthetic Aperture Radar Raw Data Simulation Using Cloud Computing.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Zhixin; Su, Dandan; Zhu, Haijiang; Li, Wei; Zhang, Fan; Li, Ruirui

2017-01-08

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) raw data simulation is a fundamental problem in radar system design and imaging algorithm research. The growth of surveying swath and resolution results in a significant increase in data volume and simulation period, which can be considered to be a comprehensive data intensive and computing intensive issue. Although several high performance computing (HPC) methods have demonstrated their potential for accelerating simulation, the input/output (I/O) bottleneck of huge raw data has not been eased. In this paper, we propose a cloud computing based SAR raw data simulation algorithm, which employs the MapReduce model to accelerate the raw data computing and the Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) for fast I/O access. The MapReduce model is designed for the irregular parallel accumulation of raw data simulation, which greatly reduces the parallel efficiency of graphics processing unit (GPU) based simulation methods. In addition, three kinds of optimization strategies are put forward from the aspects of programming model, HDFS configuration and scheduling. The experimental results show that the cloud computing based algorithm achieves 4_ speedup over the baseline serial approach in an 8-node cloud environment, and each optimization strategy can improve about 20%. This work proves that the proposed cloud algorithm is capable of solving the computing intensive and data intensive issues in SAR raw data simulation, and is easily extended to large scale computing to achieve higher acceleration.

Using the VAHIRR Radar Algorithm to Investigate Lightning Cessation

Science.gov (United States)

Stano, Geoffrey T.; Schultz, Elise V.; Petersen, Walter A.

2012-01-01

values with increases in the electric field magnitude above 3 kV/m. An extreme value analysis showed that VAHIRR values less than or equal to 10 dBZ-km showed that the probability of having an electric field magnitude larger than 3 kV/m was less than one in ten thousand. VAHIRR also was found to be sensitive at indicating anvil clouds that posed a threat of initiating a lightning flash. This project seeks to use VAHIRR to analyze its utility as a lightning cessation tool, particularly dealing with the threat posed by detached anvils. The results from this project will serve as a baseline effectiveness of radar ]based lightning cessation algorithms. This baseline will be used in the second, and concurrent work by the co ]author fs who are developing a lightning cessation algorithm based on dual ]polarimetric radar data. Ultimately, an accurate method for identifying lightning cessation can save money on lost manpower time as well as greatly improve lightning safety.

Fusion of Radar and EO-sensors for Surveillance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kester, L.J.H.M.; Theil, A.

2001-01-01

Fusion of radar and EO-sensors is investigated for the purpose of surveillance in littoral waters is. All sensors are considered to be co-located with respect to the distance, typically 1 to 10 km, of the area under surveillance. The sensor suite is a coherent polarimetric radar in combination with

The Potential of Polarimetric and Compact SAR Data in Rice Identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shao, Y; Li, K; Liu, L; Yang, Z; Brisco, B

2014-01-01

Rice is a major food staple in the world, and provides food for more than one-third of the global population. The monitoring and mapping of paddy rice in a timely and efficient manner is very important for governments and decision makers. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been proved to be a significant data source in rice monitoring. In this study, RADARSAT-2 polarimetric data were used to simulate compact polarimetry data. The simulated compact data and polarimetric data were then used to evaluate the information content for rice identification. The results indicate that polarimetric SAR can be used for rice identification based on the scattering mechanisms. The compact polarization RH and the RH/RL ratio are very promising for the discrimination of transplanted rice and direct-sown rice. These results require verification in further research

The Effect of Topography on Target Decomposition of Polarimetric SAR Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sang-Eun Park

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Polarimetric target decomposition enables the interpretation of radar images more easily, mostly based on physical assumptions, i.e., fitting physically-based scattering models to the polarimetric SAR observations. However, the model-fitting result cannot be always successful. Particularly, the performance of model-fitting in sloping forests is still an open question. In this study, the effect of ground topography on the model-fitting-based polarimetric decomposition techniques is investigated. The estimation accuracy of each scattering component in the decomposition results are evaluated based on the simulated target matrix by using the incoherent vegetation scattering model that accounts for the tilted scattering surface beneath the forest canopy. Experimental results show that the surface and the double-bounce scattering components can be significantly misestimated due to the topographic slope, even when the volume scattering power is successfully estimated.

Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data and the complex Wishart distribution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Conradsen, Knut; Skriver, Henning

2003-01-01

distribution. Based on this distribution a test statistic for equality of two such matrices and an associated asymptotic probability for obtaining a smaller value of the test statistic are given and applied to segmentation, change detection and edge detection in polarimetric SAR data. In a case study EMISAR L...

G0-WISHART Distribution Based Classification from Polarimetric SAR Images

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, G. C.; Zhao, Q. H.

2017-09-01

Enormous scientific and technical developments have been carried out to further improve the remote sensing for decades, particularly Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar(PolSAR) technique, so classification method based on PolSAR images has getted much more attention from scholars and related department around the world. The multilook polarmetric G0-Wishart model is a more flexible model which describe homogeneous, heterogeneous and extremely heterogeneous regions in the image. Moreover, the polarmetric G0-Wishart distribution dose not include the modified Bessel function of the second kind. It is a kind of simple statistical distribution model with less parameter. To prove its feasibility, a process of classification has been tested with the full-polarized Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image by the method. First, apply multilook polarimetric SAR data process and speckle filter to reduce speckle influence for classification result. Initially classify the image into sixteen classes by H/A/α decomposition. Using the ICM algorithm to classify feature based on the G0-Wshart distance. Qualitative and quantitative results show that the proposed method can classify polaimetric SAR data effectively and efficiently.

SEGMENTATION OF POLARIMETRIC SAR IMAGES USIG WAVELET TRANSFORMATION AND TEXTURE FEATURES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Rezaeian

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR sensors can collect useful observations from earth’s surfaces and phenomena for various remote sensing applications, such as land cover mapping, change and target detection. These data can be acquired without the limitations of weather conditions, sun illumination and dust particles. As result, SAR images, and in particular Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR are powerful tools for various environmental applications. Unlike the optical images, SAR images suffer from the unavoidable speckle, which causes the segmentation of this data difficult. In this paper, we use the wavelet transformation for segmentation of PolSAR images. Our proposed method is based on the multi-resolution analysis of texture features is based on wavelet transformation. Here, we use the information of gray level value and the information of texture. First, we produce coherency or covariance matrices and then generate span image from them. In the next step of proposed method is texture feature extraction from sub-bands is generated from discrete wavelet transform (DWT. Finally, PolSAR image are segmented using clustering methods as fuzzy c-means (FCM and k-means clustering. We have applied the proposed methodology to full polarimetric SAR images acquired by the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR L-band system, during July, in 2012 over an agricultural area in Winnipeg, Canada.

Segmentation of Polarimetric SAR Images Usig Wavelet Transformation and Texture Features

Science.gov (United States)

Rezaeian, A.; Homayouni, S.; Safari, A.

2015-12-01

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) sensors can collect useful observations from earth's surfaces and phenomena for various remote sensing applications, such as land cover mapping, change and target detection. These data can be acquired without the limitations of weather conditions, sun illumination and dust particles. As result, SAR images, and in particular Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) are powerful tools for various environmental applications. Unlike the optical images, SAR images suffer from the unavoidable speckle, which causes the segmentation of this data difficult. In this paper, we use the wavelet transformation for segmentation of PolSAR images. Our proposed method is based on the multi-resolution analysis of texture features is based on wavelet transformation. Here, we use the information of gray level value and the information of texture. First, we produce coherency or covariance matrices and then generate span image from them. In the next step of proposed method is texture feature extraction from sub-bands is generated from discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Finally, PolSAR image are segmented using clustering methods as fuzzy c-means (FCM) and k-means clustering. We have applied the proposed methodology to full polarimetric SAR images acquired by the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) L-band system, during July, in 2012 over an agricultural area in Winnipeg, Canada.

Mapping mountain meadow with high resolution and polarimetric SAR data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tian, Bangsen; Li, Zhen; Xu, Juan; Fu, Sitao; Liu, Jiuli

2014-01-01

This paper presents a method to map the large grassland in the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau with the high resolution polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) imagery. When PolSAR imagery is used for land cover classification, the brightness of a SAR image is affected by topography due to varying projection between ground and image coordinates. The objective of this paper is twofold: (1) we first extend the theory of SAR terrain correction to the polarimetric case, to utilize the entire available polarimetric signature, where correction is performed explicitly based on a matrix format like covariance matrix. (2) Next, the orthoectified PolSAR is applied to classify mountain meadow and investigate the potential of PolSAR in mapping grassland. In this paper, the gamma naught radiometric correction estimates the local illuminated area at each grid point in the radar geometry. Then, each element of the coherency matrix is divided by the local area to produce a polarimetric product. Secondly, the impact of radiometric correction upon classification accuracy is investigated. A supervised classification is performed on the orthorectified Radarsat-2 PolSAR to map the spatial distribution of meadow and evaluate monitoring capabilities of mountain meadow

Wetland Classification for Black Duck Habitat Management Using Combined Polarimetric RADARSAT 2 and SPOT Imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, W.; Hu, B.; Brown, G.

2018-04-01

The black duck population has decreased significantly due to loss of its breeding habitat. Wetlands are an important feature that relates to habitat management and requires monitoring. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems are helpful to map the wetland as the microwave signals are sensitive to water content and can be used to map surface water extent, saturated soils, and flooded vegetation. In this study, RadarSat 2 Polarimetric data is employed to map surface water and track changes in extent over the years through image thresholding and reviewed different approaches of Polarimetric decompositions for detecting flooded vegetation. Also, object-based analysis associated with beaver activity is conducted with combined multispectral SPOT satellite imagery. Results show SAR data has proven ability to improve mapping open water areas and locate flooded vegetation areas.

Comparison of convective clouds observed by spaceborne W-band radar and simulated by cloud-resolving atmospheric models

Science.gov (United States)

Dodson, Jason B.

Deep convective clouds (DCCs) play an important role in regulating global climate through vertical mass flux, vertical water transport, and radiation. For general circulation models (GCMs) to simulate the global climate realistically, they must simulate DCCs realistically. GCMs have traditionally used cumulus parameterizations (CPs). Much recent research has shown that multiple persistent unrealistic behaviors in GCMs are related to limitations of CPs. Two alternatives to CPs exist: the global cloud-resolving model (GCRM), and the multiscale modeling framework (MMF). Both can directly simulate the coarser features of DCCs because of their multi-kilometer horizontal resolutions, and can simulate large-scale meteorological processes more realistically than GCMs. However, the question of realistic behavior of simulated DCCs remains. How closely do simulated DCCs resemble observed DCCs? In this study I examine the behavior of DCCs in the Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) and Superparameterized Community Atmospheric Model (SP-CAM), the latter with both single-moment and double-moment microphysics. I place particular emphasis on the relationship between cloud vertical structure and convective environment. I also emphasize the transition between shallow clouds and mature DCCs. The spatial domains used are the tropical oceans and the contiguous United States (CONUS), the latter of which produces frequent vigorous convection during the summer. CloudSat is used to observe DCCs, and A-Train and reanalysis data are used to represent the large-scale environment in which the clouds form. The CloudSat cloud mask and radar reflectivity profiles for CONUS cumuliform clouds (defined as clouds with a base within the planetary boundary layer) during boreal summer are first averaged and compared. Both NICAM and SP-CAM greatly underestimate the vertical growth of cumuliform clouds. Then they are sorted by three large-scale environmental variables: total preciptable

Digital Conically Scanned L-Band Radar, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The proposed effort seeks to develop a digitally steered polarimetric phased array L-Band radar utilizing a novel, high performance architecture leveraging recent...

PolSAR Land Cover Classification Based on Roll-Invariant and Selected Hidden Polarimetric Features in the Rotation Domain

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Chensong Tao

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Land cover classification is an important application for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR. Target polarimetric response is strongly dependent on its orientation. Backscattering responses of the same target with different orientations to the SAR flight path may be quite different. This target orientation diversity effect hinders PolSAR image understanding and interpretation. Roll-invariant polarimetric features such as entropy, anisotropy, mean alpha angle, and total scattering power are independent of the target orientation and are commonly adopted for PolSAR image classification. On the other aspect, target orientation diversity also contains rich information which may not be sensed by roll-invariant polarimetric features. In this vein, only using the roll-invariant polarimetric features may limit the final classification accuracy. To address this problem, this work uses the recently reported uniform polarimetric matrix rotation theory and a visualization and characterization tool of polarimetric coherence pattern to investigate hidden polarimetric features in the rotation domain along the radar line of sight. Then, a feature selection scheme is established and a set of hidden polarimetric features are selected in the rotation domain. Finally, a classification method is developed using the complementary information between roll-invariant and selected hidden polarimetric features with a support vector machine (SVM/decision tree (DT classifier. Comparison experiments are carried out with NASA/JPL AIRSAR and multi-temporal UAVSAR data. For AIRSAR data, the overall classification accuracy of the proposed classification method is 95.37% (with SVM/96.38% (with DT, while that of the conventional classification method is 93.87% (with SVM/94.12% (with DT, respectively. Meanwhile, for multi-temporal UAVSAR data, the mean overall classification accuracy of the proposed method is up to 97.47% (with SVM/99.39% (with DT, which is also higher

Evaluation of two "integrated" polarimetric Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) algorithms at C-band

Science.gov (United States)

Tabary, Pierre; Boumahmoud, Abdel-Amin; Andrieu, Hervé; Thompson, Robert J.; Illingworth, Anthony J.; Le Bouar, Erwan; Testud, Jacques

2011-08-01

SummaryTwo so-called "integrated" polarimetric rate estimation techniques, ZPHI ( Testud et al., 2000) and ZZDR ( Illingworth and Thompson, 2005), are evaluated using 12 episodes of the year 2005 observed by the French C-band operational Trappes radar, located near Paris. The term "integrated" means that the concentration parameter of the drop size distribution is assumed to be constant over some area and the algorithms retrieve it using the polarimetric variables in that area. The evaluation is carried out in ideal conditions (no partial beam blocking, no ground-clutter contamination, no bright band contamination, a posteriori calibration of the radar variables ZH and ZDR) using hourly rain gauges located at distances less than 60 km from the radar. Also included in the comparison, for the sake of benchmarking, is a conventional Z = 282 R1.66 estimator, with and without attenuation correction and with and without adjustment by rain gauges as currently done operationally at Météo France. Under those ideal conditions, the two polarimetric algorithms, which rely solely on radar data, appear to perform as well if not better, pending on the measurements conditions (attenuation, rain rates, …), than the conventional algorithms, even when the latter take into account rain gauges through the adjustment scheme. ZZDR with attenuation correction is the best estimator for hourly rain gauge accumulations lower than 5 mm h -1 and ZPHI is the best one above that threshold. A perturbation analysis has been conducted to assess the sensitivity of the various estimators with respect to biases on ZH and ZDR, taking into account the typical accuracy and stability that can be reasonably achieved with modern operational radars these days (1 dB on ZH and 0.2 dB on ZDR). A +1 dB positive bias on ZH (radar too hot) results in a +14% overestimation of the rain rate with the conventional estimator used in this study (Z = 282R1.66), a -19% underestimation with ZPHI and a +23

Unsupervised Full-Polarimetric SAR Data Segmentation as a Tool for Classification of Agricultural Areas

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoekman, D.H.; Vissers, M.A.M.; Tran, T.N.

2011-01-01

Versatile, robust and computational efficient methods for radar image segmentation, which preserve the full polarimetric information content, are of importance as research tools, as well as for practical applications in land surface monitoring. The method introduced here consists of several steps.

Levee Seepage Detection in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Using Polarimetric SAR

Science.gov (United States)

An, K.; Jones, C. E.; Bekaert, D. P.

2017-12-01

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta's extensive levee system protects over 2,800 km2 of reclaimed lands and serves as the main irrigation and domestic water supply for the state of California. However, ongoing subsidence and disaster threats from floods and earthquakes make the Delta levee system highly vulnerable, endangering water supplies for 23 million California residents and 2.5 million acres of agricultural land. Levee failure in the Delta can cause saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay, reducing water quality and curtailing water exports to residents, commercial users, and farmers. To protect the Delta levee system, it is essential to search for signs of seepage in which water is piping through or beneath levees, which can be associated with deformation of the levees themselves. Until now, in-situ monitoring has largely been applied, however, this is a time-consuming and expensive approach. We use data acquired with NASA's UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) airborne radar instrument to identify and characterize levee seepages and associated land subsidence through advanced remote sensing technologies. The high spatial resolution of UAVSAR can help to direct surveys to areas that are likely to be experiencing damage. UAVSAR is an L-band airborne sensor with high signal-to-noise ratio, repeat flight track accuracy, and spatial resolution of 7x7 m2 (for multi-looked products) that is necessary for detailed levee monitoring. The adaptability of radar instruments in their ability to see through smoke, haze, and clouds during the day or night, is especially relevant during disaster events, when cloud cover or lack of solar illumination inhibits traditional visual surveys of damage. We demonstrate the advantages of combining polarimetric radar imagery with geographic information systems (GIS) datasets in locating seepage features along critical levee infrastructure in the Delta for 2009-2016. The ability to efficiently locate potential

Doppler Radar and Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Observations of a Severe Outbreak of Tropical Cyclone Tornadoes

Science.gov (United States)

McCaul, Eugene W., Jr.; Buechler, Dennis; Cammarata, Michael; Arnold, James E. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Data from a single WSR-88D Doppler radar and the National Lightning Detection Network are used to examine the characteristics of the convective storms that produced a severe tornado outbreak within Tropical Storm Beryl's remnants on 16 August 1994. Comparison of the radar data with reports of tornadoes suggests that only 12 cells produced the 29 tornadoes that were documented in Georgia and the Carolinas on that date. Six of these cells spawned multiple tornadoes, and the radar data confirm the presence of miniature supercells. One of the cells was identifiable on radar for 11 hours, spawning tornadoes over a time period spanning approximately 6.5 hours. Time-height analyses of the three strongest supercells are presented in order to document storm kinematic structure and evolution. These Beryl mini-supercells were comparable in radar-observed intensity but much more persistent than other tropical cyclone-spawned tornadic cells documented thus far with Doppler radars. Cloud-to-ground lightning data are also examined for all the tornadic cells in this severe swarm-type tornado outbreak. These data show many of the characteristics of previously reported heavy-precipitation supercells. Lightning rates were weak to moderate, even in the more intense supercells, and in all the storms the lightning flashes were almost entirely negative in polarity. No lightning at all was detected in some of the single-tornado storms. In the stronger cells, there is some evidence that lightning rates can decrease during tornadogenesis, as has been documented before in some midlatitude tornadic storms. A number of the storms spawned tornadoes just after producing their final cloud-to-ground lightning flashes. These findings suggest possible benefits from implementation of observing systems capable of monitoring intracloud as well as cloud-to-ground lightning activity.

Detecting Emergence, Growth, and Senescence of Wetland Vegetation with Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alisa L. Gallant

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Wetlands provide ecosystem goods and services vitally important to humans. Land managers and policymakers working to conserve wetlands require regularly updated information on the statuses of wetlands across the landscape. However, wetlands are challenging to map remotely with high accuracy and consistency. We investigated the use of multitemporal polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR data acquired with Canada’s Radarsat-2 system to track within-season changes in wetland vegetation and surface water. We speculated, a priori, how temporal and morphological traits of different types of wetland vegetation should respond over a growing season with respect to four energy-scattering mechanisms. We used ground-based monitoring data and other ancillary information to assess the limits and consistency of the SAR data for tracking seasonal changes in wetlands. We found the traits of different types of vertical emergent wetland vegetation were detected well with the SAR data and corresponded with our anticipated backscatter responses. We also found using data from Landsat’s optical/infrared sensors in conjunction with SAR data helped remove confusion of wetland features with upland grasslands. These results suggest SAR data can provide useful monitoring information on the statuses of wetlands over time.

Detecting emergence, growth, and senescence of wetland vegetation with polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data

Science.gov (United States)

Gallant, Alisa L.; Kaya, Shannon G.; White, Lori; Brisco, Brian; Roth, Mark F.; Sadinski, Walter J.; Rover, Jennifer

2014-01-01

Wetlands provide ecosystem goods and services vitally important to humans. Land managers and policymakers working to conserve wetlands require regularly updated information on the statuses of wetlands across the landscape. However, wetlands are challenging to map remotely with high accuracy and consistency. We investigated the use of multitemporal polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data acquired with Canada’s Radarsat-2 system to track within-season changes in wetland vegetation and surface water. We speculated, a priori, how temporal and morphological traits of different types of wetland vegetation should respond over a growing season with respect to four energy-scattering mechanisms. We used ground-based monitoring data and other ancillary information to assess the limits and consistency of the SAR data for tracking seasonal changes in wetlands. We found the traits of different types of vertical emergent wetland vegetation were detected well with the SAR data and corresponded with our anticipated backscatter responses. We also found using data from Landsat’s optical/infrared sensors in conjunction with SAR data helped remove confusion of wetland features with upland grasslands. These results suggest SAR data can provide useful monitoring information on the statuses of wetlands over time.

Offshore platform sourced pollution monitoring using space-borne fully polarimetric C and X band synthetic aperture radar.

Science.gov (United States)

Singha, Suman; Ressel, Rudolf

2016-11-15

Use of polarimetric SAR data for offshore pollution monitoring is relatively new and shows great potential for operational offshore platform monitoring. This paper describes the development of an automated oil spill detection chain for operational purposes based on C-band (RADARSAT-2) and X-band (TerraSAR-X) fully polarimetric images, wherein we use polarimetric features to characterize oil spills and look-alikes. Numbers of near coincident TerraSAR-X and RADARSAT-2 images have been acquired over offshore platforms. Ten polarimetric feature parameters were extracted from different types of oil and 'look-alike' spots and divided into training and validation dataset. Extracted features were then used to develop a pixel based Artificial Neural Network classifier. Mutual information contents among extracted features were assessed and feature parameters were ranked according to their ability to discriminate between oil spill and look-alike spots. Polarimetric features such as Scattering Diversity, Surface Scattering Fraction and Span proved to be most suitable for operational services. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Recent Advances In Radar Polarimetry And Polarimetric SAR Interferometry

Science.gov (United States)

2007-02-01

progressing from “Classical X- Ray -Shadow-graphy” toward “functional Magnetic Resonant Imaging (fMRI)”. Classical Amplitude-Only Radar & SAR, and “Scalar...Chipman, R. A, and J. W. Morris, eds. 1990, Polarimetry: Radar, Infrared, Visible, Ultraviolet, X- Ray , Proc. SPIE-1317 ( also see SPIE Proc. 891... Oldenburg Verlag, Munich 1999, 88 p. [173] Mott, H. and W-M. Boerner, 1992, editors, “Radar Polarimetry, SPIE’s Annual Mtg., Polarimetry Conference

Adaptive polarimetric image representation for contrast optimization of a polarized beacon through fog

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Panigrahi, Swapnesh; Fade, Julien; Alouini, Mehdi

2015-01-01

We present a contrast-maximizing optimal linear representation of polarimetric images obtained from a snapshot polarimetric camera for enhanced vision of a polarized light source in obscured weather conditions (fog, haze, cloud) over long distances (above 1 km). We quantitatively compare the gain in contrast obtained by different linear representations of the experimental polarimetric images taken during rapidly varying foggy conditions. It is shown that the adaptive image representation that depends on the correlation in background noise fluctuations in the two polarimetric images provides an optimal contrast enhancement over all weather conditions as opposed to a simple difference image which underperforms during low visibility conditions. Finally, we derive the analytic expression of the gain in contrast obtained with this optimal representation and show that the experimental results are in agreement with the assumed correlated Gaussian noise model. (paper)

Ispitivanje uticaja oblaka smetnji na monoimpulsni nišanski radar i protivradarske rakete / Analysis of the influence of jamming clouds on monopulse tracking radars and antiradar missiles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Čedomir Gacović

2004-03-01

Full Text Available U ovom radu razmatrane su metodologije i eksperimentalni rezultati ispitivanja uticaja oblaka smetnji na monoimpulsne nišanske radare i protivradarske rakete. Rezultati su pokazali ispravnost postavljenih teorijskih modela i izvršenih analiza primene oblaka smetnji tokom NATO agresije na Jugoslaviju 1999. godine. / This paper considers the methods and the experimental results of the analysis of the jamming cloud influence on monopulse tracking radars and antiradar missiles. The results confirmed the value of the set theoretical models and the analyses of the application of jamming clouds carried out during the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia in 1999.

Quantitative Estimation of Above Ground Crop Biomass using Ground-based, Airborne and Spaceborne Low Frequency Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar

Science.gov (United States)

Koyama, C.; Watanabe, M.; Shimada, M.

2016-12-01

Estimation of crop biomass is one of the important challenges in environmental remote sensing related to agricultural as well as hydrological and meteorological applications. Usually passive optical data (photographs, spectral data) operating in the visible and near-infrared bands is used for such purposes. The virtue of optical remote sensing for yield estimation, however, is rather limited as the visible light can only provide information about the chemical characteristics of the canopy surface. Low frequency microwave signals with wavelength longer 20 cm have the potential to penetrate through the canopy and provide information about the whole vertical structure of vegetation from the top of the canopy down to the very soil surface. This phenomenon has been well known and exploited to detect targets under vegetation in the military radar application known as FOPEN (foliage penetration). With the availability of polarimetric interferometric SAR data the use PolInSAR techniques to retrieve vertical vegetation structures has become an attractive tool. However, PolInSAR is still highly experimental and suitable data is not yet widely available. In this study we focus on the use of operational dual-polarization L-band (1.27 GHz) SAR which is since the launch of Japan's Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS, 2006-2011) available worldwide. Since 2014 ALOS-2 continues to deliver such kind of partial polarimetric data for the entire land surface. In addition to these spaceborne data sets we use airborne L-band SAR data acquired by the Japanese Pi-SAR-L2 as well as ultra-wideband (UWB) ground based SAR data operating in the frequency range from 1-4 GHz. By exploiting the complex dual-polarization [C2] Covariance matrix information, the scattering contributions from the canopy can be well separated from the ground reflections allowing for the establishment of semi-empirical relationships between measured radar reflectivity and the amount of fresh-weight above

Precipitating clouds observed by 1.3-GHz boundary layer radars in equatorial Indonesia

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F. Renggono

2001-08-01

Full Text Available Temporal variations of precipitating clouds in equatorial Indonesia have been studied based on observations with 1357.5 MHz boundary layer radars at Serpong (6.4° S, 106.7° E near Jakarta and Bukittinggi (0.2° S, 100.3° E in West Sumatera. We have classified precipitating clouds into four types: stratiform, mixed stratiform-convective, deep convective, and shallow convective clouds, using the Williams et al. (1995 method. Diurnal variations of the occurrence of precipitating clouds at Serpong and Bukittinggi have showed the same characteristics, namely, that the precipitating clouds primarily occur in the afternoon and the peak of the stratiform cloud comes after the peak of the deep convective cloud. The time delay between the peaks of stratiform and deep convective clouds corresponds to the life cycle of the mesoscale convective system. The precipitating clouds which occur in the early morning at Serpong are dominated by stratiform cloud. Concerning seasonal variations of the precipitating clouds, we have found that the occurrence of the stratiform cloud is most frequent in the rainy season, while the occurrence of the deep convective cloud is predominant in the dry season.Key words. Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (convective processes; precipitation; tropical meteorology

BUILT-UP AREA DETECTION BASED ON SUBSPACE PROJECTIONS USING POLARIMETRIC SAR DATA

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R. Bordbari

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The task of detecting and identifying objects remotely has long been an area of intense interest and active research. Active sensing of objects with radio waves is a whole new domain of target detection which is made available by radar remote sensors. Land cover/use information extraction is one of the most important applications of radar remote sensing, especially in urban areas. In this paper, we take a new look at the built-up area extraction problem in polarimetric SAR (PolSAR data and assume canonical scattering mechanisms as our signal sources which combination of them with appropriate weight fractions formed a scattering vector of each pixel. The set of the scattering mechanisms is divided into two groups: the scattering mechanism of built-up area, and non-objected scattering mechanisms. Then, we describe a technique which simultaneously annihilates the effect of non-objected scattering mechanisms, and detects the presence of a scattering mechanism of interest. The experimental results on several quad-polarimetric datasets show the significant agreement with expected results, while saving computational complexity.

Comparisons of Circular Transmit and Linear Receive Compact Polarimetric SAR Features for Oil Slicks Discrimination

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Yu Li

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Compact polarimetric (CP synthetic aperture radar (SAR has proven its potential in distinguishing oil slicks and look-alikes. Polarimetric information can be retrieved directly from scattering vector or from reconstructed pseudo-Quad-Pol covariance matrix of CP SAR data. In this paper, we analysed features from Circular Transmit and Linear Receive (CTLR CP SAR data that are derived by taking both of these two methods. K-means clustering followed by accuracy assessment was also implemented for performance evaluation. Through experiments that were conducted based on L-band UAVSAR fully polarimetric data, it was found that optimum extraction methods varied for different features. The histogram analysis and segmentation results also demonstrated the comparable performance of CP SAR features in distinguishing different damping properties within oil slicks. This study proposed a framework of statistically analyzing polarimetric SAR (Pol-SAR features and provided guidelines for determining optimum feature extraction methods from CP SAR data and for marine oil-spills detection and classification.

Complex Wishart distribution based analysis of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Skriver, Henning; Conradsen, Knut

2007-01-01

statistic for equality of two such matrices and an associated asymptotic probability for obtaining a smaller value of the test statistic are given and applied to change detection, edge detection and segmentation in polarimetric SAR data. In a case study EMISAR L-band data from 17 April 1998 and 20 May 1998...

The Ecosystems SAR (EcoSAR) an Airborne P-band Polarimetric InSAR for the Measurement of Vegetation Structure, Biomass and Permafrost

Science.gov (United States)

Rincon, Rafael F.; Fatoyinbo, Temilola; Ranson, K. Jon; Osmanoglu, Batuhan; Sun, Guoqing; Deshpande, Manohar D.; Perrine, Martin L.; Du Toit, Cornelis F.; Bonds, Quenton; Beck, Jaclyn;

Full Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Data for ionosphere observation - A comparative study

Science.gov (United States)

Mohanty, S.; Singh, G.

2017-12-01

Ionosphere, predominantly, govern the propagation of radio waves, especially at L-band and lower frequencies. Small-scale, rapid fluctuations in the electron density, termed as scintillation phenomenon, cause rapid variations in signal amplitude and phase. Scintillation studies have been done using ground-based radio transmitter and beacon GPS signals. In this work, attempt has been made to utilize full polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite signal at L-band (1.27 GHz) to develop a new measurement index for SAR signal intensity fluctuation. Datasets acquired from Japan's latest Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS)-2 over the Indian subcontinent on two different dates, with varying ionospheric activities, have been utilized to compare the index. A 20% increase in the index values for a scintillation-affected day has been observed. The result coincides with the nature of ionospheric scintillation pattern typically observed over the equatorial belt. Total electron content values, for the two dates of acquisition, obtained from freely available Ionosphere Exchange (IONEX) data have been used to validate the varying ionospheric activities as well as the trend in index results. Another interesting finding of the paper is the demarcation of the equatorial anomaly belt. The index values are comparatively higher at these latitudes on a scintillation-affected day. Furthermore, the SAR signal intensity fluctuation index has great potential in being used as a preliminary measurement index to identify low frequency SAR data affected by ionospheric scintillation.

Tomographic retrieval of cloud liquid water fields from a single scanning microwave radiometer aboard a moving platform – Part 1: Field trial results from the Wakasa Bay experiment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. Huang

2010-07-01

Full Text Available Tomographic methods offer great potential for retrieving three-dimensional spatial distributions of cloud liquid water from radiometric observations by passive microwave sensors. Fixed tomographic systems require multiple radiometers, while mobile systems can use just a single radiometer. Part 1 (this paper examines the results from a limited cloud tomography trial with a single-radiometer airborne system carried out as part of the 2003 AMSR-E validation campaign over Wakasa Bay of the Sea of Japan. During this trial, the Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR and Microwave Imaging Radiometer (MIR aboard the NASA P-3 research aircraft provided a useful dataset for testing the cloud tomography method over a system of low-level clouds. We do tomographic retrievals with a constrained inversion algorithm using three configurations: PSR, MIR, and combined PSR and MIR data. The liquid water paths from the PSR retrieval are consistent with those from the MIR retrieval. The retrieved cloud field based on the combined data appears to be physically plausible and consistent with the cloud image obtained by a cloud radar. We find that some vertically-uniform clouds appear at high altitudes in the retrieved field where the radar shows clear sky. This is likely due to the sub-optimal data collection strategy. This sets the stage for Part 2 of this study that aims to define optimal data collection strategies using observation system simulation experiments.

A 100 GHz Polarimetric Compact Radar Range for Scale-Model Radar Cross Section Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

2013-10-01

common radar bands. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank David Jillson (UML STL – Electrical Engineer) for efforts involved in RF and DC wiring...Waldman J., Fetterman H.R., Duffy P.E., Bryant T.G., Tannenwald P.E., “Submillimeter Model Measurements and Their Applications to Millimeter Radar

Kinematic, dynamic, and thermodynamic impacts of hook-echo hydrometeors, including explorations into the utilization of polarimetric radar data

Science.gov (United States)

Askelson, Mark Anthony

Recent studies have revealed that the thermodynamic properties of the rear flank downdraft (RFD) may dictate whether or not a supercell becomes tornadic. Since hydrometeors are thought to be an important driving force for the RFD, it is postulated that they may be important to its thermodynamic properties and, possibly, to tornadogenesis. The role hook-echo hydrometeors play in driving RFDs is investigated by estimating hook-echo hydrometeor types and amounts from polarimetric radar data and by using that information to drive a relatively simple downdraft model. Soundings for the individual cases are used to initialize the downdraft model in order to replicate the environments of the storms as closely as possible. Since this effort and others like it require the quantitative utilization of radar data, issues pertaining to this are explored. In addition to analyses of coordinate transformation equations and an innovative objective analysis technique for weather radar data, the difficult problem of response functions for arbitrary weight functions and data distributions was considered. A novel approach to this problem revealed that the local response function for distance dependent weighted averaging schemes is the complex conjugate of the normalized Fourier transform of the effective weight function. This facilitates new research avenues, especially regarding analyses of irregularly spaced data. Simulations of hydrometeor driven RFDs show that hydrometeor fields inferred from radar data are able to drive significant downdrafts without the influence of vertical perturbation pressure gradients. Moreover, they reveal that above the boundary layer supercell environments are relatively resistant to downdrafts whereas within the boundary layer they are generally supportive of downdrafts. It appears that in many supercell environments relatively large hail (≥1 cm in diameter) or vertical perturbation pressure gradients may be needed to drive deep midlevel downdrafts that

Proceedings of the COST 75 final seminar on advanced weather radar systems; Beitraege des Instituts zum COST 75 final seminar on advanced weather radar systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baumann, R.; Flender, F.; Hagen, M.; Hoeller, H.; Keil, C.; Meischner, P.

1998-07-01

Across Europe more than 110 weather radars are in operation. More than 60 of them are Doppler radars and this number is increasing steadily. Doppler systems are becoming an operational standard. Most systems operate in C-band, with the exception of the Spanish radar network which is composed of S-band Doppler radars. Radar product composites are available for Scandinavia and Central Europe. National networks exist for the UK, France and Spain. Europe further is fortunate to have 8 polarimetric Doppler radars used mainly for research. In Italy some of those systems are used also for operational nowcasting applications for dedicated customers. The Chilbolton multiparameter Doppler radar operates at S-band. (orig.)

Diurnal Variation of Tropical Ice Cloud Microphysics inferred from Global Precipitation Measurement Microwave Imager (GPM-GMI)'s Polarimetric Measurement

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, J.; Zeng, X.; Wu, D. L.; Li, X.

2017-12-01

Diurnal variation of tropical ice cloud has been well observed and examined in terms of the area of coverage, occurring frequency, and total mass, but rarely on ice microphysical parameters (habit, size, orientation, etc.) because of lack of direct measurements of ice microphysics on a high temporal and spatial resolutions. This accounts for a great portion of the uncertainty in evaluating ice cloud's role on global radiation and hydrological budgets. The design of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's procession orbit gives us an unprecedented opportunity to study the diurnal variation of ice microphysics on the global scale for the first time. Dominated by cloud ice scattering, high-frequency microwave polarimetric difference (PD, namely the brightness temperature difference between vertically- and horizontally-polarized paired channel measurements) from the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) has been proven by our previous study to be very valuable to infer cloud ice microphysical properties. Using one year of PD measurements at 166 GHz, we found that cloud PD exhibits a strong diurnal cycle in the tropics (25S-25N). The peak PD amplitude varies as much as 35% over land, compared to only 6% over ocean. The diurnal cycle of the peak PD value is strongly anti-correlated with local ice cloud occurring frequency and the total ice mass with a leading period of 3 hours for the maximum correlation. The observed PD diurnal cycle can be explained by the change of ice crystal axial ratio. Using a radiative transfer model, we can simulate the observed 166 GHz PD-brightness temperature curve as well as its diurnal variation using different axial ratio values, which can be caused by the diurnal variation of ice microphysical properties including particle size, percentage of horizontally-aligned non-spherical particles, and ice habit. The leading of the change of PD ahead of ice cloud mass and occurring frequency implies the important role microphysics play in the

A particle swarm optimized kernel-based clustering method for crop mapping from multi-temporal polarimetric L-band SAR observations

Science.gov (United States)

Tamiminia, Haifa; Homayouni, Saeid; McNairn, Heather; Safari, Abdoreza

2017-06-01

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) data, thanks to their specific characteristics such as high resolution, weather and daylight independence, have become a valuable source of information for environment monitoring and management. The discrimination capability of observations acquired by these sensors can be used for land cover classification and mapping. The aim of this paper is to propose an optimized kernel-based C-means clustering algorithm for agriculture crop mapping from multi-temporal PolSAR data. Firstly, several polarimetric features are extracted from preprocessed data. These features are linear polarization intensities, and several statistical and physical based decompositions such as Cloude-Pottier, Freeman-Durden and Yamaguchi techniques. Then, the kernelized version of hard and fuzzy C-means clustering algorithms are applied to these polarimetric features in order to identify crop types. The kernel function, unlike the conventional partitioning clustering algorithms, simplifies the non-spherical and non-linearly patterns of data structure, to be clustered easily. In addition, in order to enhance the results, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to tune the kernel parameters, cluster centers and to optimize features selection. The efficiency of this method was evaluated by using multi-temporal UAVSAR L-band images acquired over an agricultural area near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, during June and July in 2012. The results demonstrate more accurate crop maps using the proposed method when compared to the classical approaches, (e.g. 12% improvement in general). In addition, when the optimization technique is used, greater improvement is observed in crop classification, e.g. 5% in overall. Furthermore, a strong relationship between Freeman-Durden volume scattering component, which is related to canopy structure, and phenological growth stages is observed.

Evaluation of Fog and Low Stratus Cloud Microphysical Properties Derived from In Situ Sensor, Cloud Radar and SYRSOC Algorithm

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Jean-Charles Dupont

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The microphysical properties of low stratus and fog are analyzed here based on simultaneous measurement of an in situ sensor installed on board a tethered balloon and active remote-sensing instruments deployed at the Instrumented Site for Atmospheric Remote Sensing Research (SIRTA observatory (south of Paris, France. The study focuses on the analysis of 3 case studies where the tethered balloon is deployed for several hours in order to derive the relationship between liquid water content (LWC, effective radius (Re and cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC measured by a light optical aerosol counter (LOAC in situ granulometer and Bistatic Radar System for Atmospheric Studies (BASTA cloud radar reflectivity. The well-known relationship Z = α × (LWCβ has been optimized with α ϵ [0.02, 0.097] and β ϵ [1.91, 2.51]. Similar analysis is done to optimize the relationship Re = f(Z and CDNC = f(Z. Two methodologies have been applied to normalize the particle-size distribution measured by the LOAC granulometer with a visible extinction closure (R² ϵ [0.73, 0.93] and to validate the LWC profile with a liquid water closure using the Humidity and Temperature Profiler (HATPRO microwave radiometer (R² ϵ [0.83, 0.91]. In a second step, these relationships are used to derive spatial and temporal variability of the vertical profile of LWC, Re and CDNC starting from BASTA measurement. Finally, the synergistic remote sensing of clouds (SYRSOC algorithm has been tested on three tethered balloon flights. Generally, SYRSOC CDNC and Re profiles agreed well with LOAC in situ and BASTA profiles for the studied fog layers. A systematic overestimation of LWC by SYRSOC in the top half of the fog layer was found due to fog processes that are not accounted for in the cloud algorithm SYRSOC.

Mapping submarine sand waves with multiband imaging radar - 2. Experimental results and model comparison

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vogelzang, J.; Wensink, G.J.; Calkoen, C.J.; Kooij, M.W.A. van der

1997-01-01

On August 16, 1989, and on July 12, 1991, experiments were performed to study the mapping of submarine sand waves with the airborne imaging radar, a polarimetric (and, in 1991, interferometric) airborne P, L, and C band synthetic aperture radar system. The experiments took place in an area 30 km off

Monitoring of Oil Exploitation Infrastructure by Combining Unsupervised Pixel-Based Classification of Polarimetric SAR and Object-Based Image Analysis

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Simon Plank

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In developing countries, there is a high correlation between the dependence of oil exports and violent conflicts. Furthermore, even in countries which experienced a peaceful development of their oil industry, land use and environmental issues occur. Therefore, independent monitoring of oil field infrastructure may support problem solving. Earth observation data enables fast monitoring of large areas which allows comparing the real amount of land used by the oil exploitation and the companies’ contractual obligations. The target feature of this monitoring is the infrastructure of the oil exploitation, oil well pads—rectangular features of bare land covering an area of approximately 50–60 m × 100 m. This article presents an automated feature extraction procedure based on the combination of a pixel-based unsupervised classification of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data (PolSAR and an object-based post-classification. The method is developed and tested using dual-polarimetric TerraSAR-X imagery acquired over the Doba basin in south Chad. The advantages of PolSAR are independence of the cloud coverage (vs. optical imagery and the possibility of detailed land use classification (vs. single-pol SAR. The PolSAR classification uses the polarimetric Wishart probability density function based on the anisotropy/entropy/alpha decomposition. The object-based post-classification refinement, based on properties of the feature targets such as shape and area, increases the user’s accuracy of the methodology by an order of a magnitude. The final achieved user’s and producer’s accuracy is 59%–71% in each case (area based accuracy assessment. Considering only the numbers of correctly/falsely detected oil well pads, the user’s and producer’s accuracies increase to even 74%–89%. In an iterative training procedure the best suited polarimetric speckle filter and processing parameters of the developed feature extraction procedure are

Evolution of Precipitation Structure During the November DYNAMO MJO Event: Cloud-Resolving Model Intercomparison and Cross Validation Using Radar Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xiaowen; Janiga, Matthew A.; Wang, Shuguang; Tao, Wei-Kuo; Rowe, Angela; Xu, Weixin; Liu, Chuntao; Matsui, Toshihisa; Zhang, Chidong

2018-04-01

Evolution of precipitation structures are simulated and compared with radar observations for the November Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) event during the DYNAmics of the MJO (DYNAMO) field campaign. Three ground-based, ship-borne, and spaceborne precipitation radars and three cloud-resolving models (CRMs) driven by observed large-scale forcing are used to study precipitation structures at different locations over the central equatorial Indian Ocean. Convective strength is represented by 0-dBZ echo-top heights, and convective organization by contiguous 17-dBZ areas. The multi-radar and multi-model framework allows for more stringent model validations. The emphasis is on testing models' ability to simulate subtle differences observed at different radar sites when the MJO event passed through. The results show that CRMs forced by site-specific large-scale forcing can reproduce not only common features in cloud populations but also subtle variations observed by different radars. The comparisons also revealed common deficiencies in CRM simulations where they underestimate radar echo-top heights for the strongest convection within large, organized precipitation features. Cross validations with multiple radars and models also enable quantitative comparisons in CRM sensitivity studies using different large-scale forcing, microphysical schemes and parameters, resolutions, and domain sizes. In terms of radar echo-top height temporal variations, many model sensitivity tests have better correlations than radar/model comparisons, indicating robustness in model performance on this aspect. It is further shown that well-validated model simulations could be used to constrain uncertainties in observed echo-top heights when the low-resolution surveillance scanning strategy is used.

RADARES IMAGEADORES NAS GEOCIÊNCIAS: ESTADO DA ARTE E PERSPECTIVAS

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Edson S. P. da Cunha

2005-04-01

Full Text Available Results from more than a decade of orbital Synthetic Aperture Radars (SARs applied to Geoscience, mainly in the moist tropics, have shown that the technology has provided useful information, mainly derived through qualitative approaches. Images of amplitude (monoscopic and stereoscopic analysis, digital integrated products and textural classification have been used for terrain mapping. The paper discusses current application trends for Cartography and Geology based on conventional radar data (one frequency, one polarization and perspectives driven by a more quantitative approach with the advent of multipolarized, polarimetric and interferometric imaging radars.

Discrimination of Oil Slicks and Lookalikes in Polarimetric SAR Images Using CNN.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Hao; Wu, Danni; An, Jubai

2017-08-09

Oil slicks and lookalikes (e.g., plant oil and oil emulsion) all appear as dark areas in polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and are highly heterogeneous, so it is very difficult to use a single feature that can allow classification of dark objects in polarimetric SAR images as oil slicks or lookalikes. We established multi-feature fusion to support the discrimination of oil slicks and lookalikes. In the paper, simple discrimination analysis is used to rationalize a preferred features subset. The features analyzed include entropy, alpha, and Single-bounce Eigenvalue Relative Difference (SERD) in the C-band polarimetric mode. We also propose a novel SAR image discrimination method for oil slicks and lookalikes based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The regions of interest are selected as the training and testing samples for CNN on the three kinds of polarimetric feature images. The proposed method is applied to a training data set of 5400 samples, including 1800 crude oil, 1800 plant oil, and 1800 oil emulsion samples. In the end, the effectiveness of the method is demonstrated through the analysis of some experimental results. The classification accuracy obtained using 900 samples of test data is 91.33%. It is here observed that the proposed method not only can accurately identify the dark spots on SAR images but also verify the ability of the proposed algorithm to classify unstructured features.

Retrieval of ice thickness from polarimetric SAR data

Science.gov (United States)

Kwok, R.; Yueh, S. H.; Nghiem, S. V.; Huynh, D. D.

1993-01-01

We describe a potential procedure for retrieving ice thickness from multi-frequency polarimetric SAR data for thin ice. This procedure includes first masking out the thicker ice types with a simple classifier and then deriving the thickness of the remaining pixels using a model-inversion technique. The technique used to derive ice thickness from polarimetric observations is provided by a numerical estimator or neural network. A three-layer perceptron implemented with the backpropagation algorithm is used in this investigation with several improved aspects for a faster convergence rate and a better accuracy of the neural network. These improvements include weight initialization, normalization of the output range, the selection of offset constant, and a heuristic learning algorithm. The performance of the neural network is demonstrated by using training data generated by a theoretical scattering model for sea ice matched to the database of interest. The training data are comprised of the polarimetric backscattering coefficients of thin ice and the corresponding input ice parameters to the scattering model. The retrieved ice thickness from the theoretical backscattering coefficients is compare with the input ice thickness to the scattering model to illustrate the accuracy of the inversion method. Results indicate that the network convergence rate and accuracy are higher when multi-frequency training sets are presented. In addition, the dominant backscattering coefficients in retrieving ice thickness are found by comparing the behavior of the network trained backscattering data at various incidence angels. After the neural network is trained with the theoretical backscattering data at various incidence anges, the interconnection weights between nodes are saved and applied to the experimental data to be investigated. In this paper, we illustrate the effectiveness of this technique using polarimetric SAR data collected by the JPL DC-8 radar over a sea ice scene.

Cross Validation of Rain Drop Size Distribution between GPM and Ground Based Polarmetric radar

Science.gov (United States)

Chandra, C. V.; Biswas, S.; Le, M.; Chen, H.

2017-12-01

Dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) on board the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core satellite has reflectivity measurements at two independent frequencies, Ku- and Ka- band. Dual-frequency retrieval algorithms have been developed traditionally through forward, backward, and recursive approaches. However, these algorithms suffer from "dual-value" problem when they retrieve medium volume diameter from dual-frequency ratio (DFR) in rain region. To this end, a hybrid method has been proposed to perform raindrop size distribution (DSD) retrieval for GPM using a linear constraint of DSD along rain profile to avoid "dual-value" problem (Le and Chandrasekar, 2015). In the current GPM level 2 algorithm (Iguchi et al. 2017- Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document) the Solver module retrieves a vertical profile of drop size distributionn from dual-frequency observations and path integrated attenuations. The algorithm details can be found in Seto et al. (2013) . On the other hand, ground based polarimetric radars have been used for a long time to estimate drop size distributions (e.g., Gorgucci et al. 2002 ). In addition, coincident GPM and ground based observations have been cross validated using careful overpass analysis. In this paper, we perform cross validation on raindrop size distribution retrieval from three sources, namely the hybrid method, the standard products from the solver module and DSD retrievals from ground polarimetric radars. The results are presented from two NEXRAD radars located in Dallas -Fort Worth, Texas (i.e., KFWS radar) and Melbourne, Florida (i.e., KMLB radar). The results demonstrate the ability of DPR observations to produce DSD estimates, which can be used subsequently to generate global DSD maps. References: Seto, S., T. Iguchi, T. Oki, 2013: The basic performance of a precipitation retrieval algorithm for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission's single/dual-frequency radar measurements. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and

Monsoon Convection during the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment Observed from Shipboard Radar and the TRMM Satellite

Science.gov (United States)

Rickenbach, Tom; Cifelli, Rob; Halverson, Jeff; Kucera, Paul; Atkinson, Lester; Fisher, Brad; Gerlach, John; Harris, Kathy; Kaufman, Cristina; Liu, Ching-Hwang;

Polarimetric scattering model for estimation of above ground biomass of multilayer vegetation using ALOS-PALSAR quad-pol data

Science.gov (United States)

Sai Bharadwaj, P.; Kumar, Shashi; Kushwaha, S. P. S.; Bijker, Wietske

Forests are important biomes covering a major part of the vegetation on the Earth, and as such account for seventy percent of the carbon present in living beings. The value of a forest's above ground biomass (AGB) is considered as an important parameter for the estimation of global carbon content. In the present study, the quad-pol ALOS-PALSAR data was used for the estimation of AGB for the Dudhwa National Park, India. For this purpose, polarimetric decomposition components and an Extended Water Cloud Model (EWCM) were used. The PolSAR data orientation angle shifts were compensated for before the polarimetric decomposition. The scattering components obtained from the polarimetric decomposition were used in the Water Cloud Model (WCM). The WCM was extended for higher order interactions like double bounce scattering. The parameters of the EWCM were retrieved using the field measurements and the decomposition components. Finally, the relationship between the estimated AGB and measured AGB was assessed. The coefficient of determination (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE) were 0.4341 and 119 t/ha respectively.

Compact Polarimetric SAR Ship Detection with m-δ Decomposition Using Visual Attention Model

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Lu Xu

2016-09-01

Full Text Available A few previous studies have illustrated the potentials of compact polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (CP SAR in ship detection. In this paper, we design a ship detection algorithm of CP SAR from the perspective of computer vision. A ship detection algorithm using the pulsed cosine transform (PCT visual attention model is proposed to suppress background clutter and highlight conspicuous ship targets. It is the first time that a visual attention model is introduced to CP SAR application. The proposed algorithm is a quick and complete framework for practical use. Polarimetric features—the relative phase δ and volume scattering component—are extracted from m-δ decomposition to eliminate false alarms and modify the PCT model. The constant false alarm rate (CFAR algorithm based on lognormal distribution is adopted to detect ship targets, after a clutter distribution fitting procedure of the modified saliency map. The proposed method is then tested on three simulated circular-transmit-linear-receive (CTLR mode images, which covering East Sea of China. Compared with the detection results of SPAN and the saliency map with only single-channel amplitude, the proposed method achieves the highest detection rates and the lowest misidentification rate and highest figure of merit, proving the effectiveness of polarimetric information of compact polarimetric SAR ship detection and the enhancement from the visual attention model.

The influence of rain and clouds on a satellite dual frequency radar altimeter system operating at 13 and 35 GHz

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, E. J.; Monaldo, F. M.; Goldhirsh, J.

1983-01-01

The effects of inhomogeneous spatial attenuation resulting from clouds and rain on the altimeter estimate of the range to mean sea level are modelled. It is demonstrated that typical cloud and rain attenuation variability at commonly expected spatial scales can significantly degrade altimeter range precision. Rain cell and cloud scale sizes and attenuations are considered as factors. The model simulation of altimeter signature distortion is described, and the distortion of individual radar pulse waveforms by different spatial scales of attenuation is considered. Examples of range errors found for models of a single cloud, a rain cell, and cloud streets are discussed.

W-band spaceborne radar observations of atmospheric river events

Science.gov (United States)

Matrosov, S. Y.

2010-12-01

While the main objective of the world first W-band radar aboard the CloudSat satellite is to provide vertically resolved information on clouds, it proved to be a valuable tool for observing precipitation. The CloudSat radar is generally able to resolve precipitating cloud systems in their vertical entirety. Although measurements from the liquid hydrometer layer containing rainfall are strongly attenuated, special retrieval approaches can be used to estimate rainfall parameters. These approaches are based on vertical gradients of observed radar reflectivity factor rather than on absolute estimates of reflectivity. Concurrent independent estimations of ice cloud parameters in the same vertical column allow characterization of precipitating systems and provide information on coupling between clouds and rainfall they produce. The potential of CloudSat for observations atmospheric river events affecting the West Coast of North America is evaluated. It is shown that spaceborne radar measurements can provide high resolution information on the height of the freezing level thus separating areas of rainfall and snowfall. CloudSat precipitation rate estimates complement information from the surface-based radars. Observations of atmospheric rivers at different locations above the ocean and during landfall help to understand evolutions of atmospheric rivers and their structures.

Evaluating Microphysics in Cloud-Resolving Models using TRMM and Ground-based Precipitation Radar Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Krueger, S. K.; Zulauf, M. A.; Li, Y.; Zipser, E. J.

2005-05-01

Global satellite datasets such as those produced by ISCCP, ERBE, and CERES provide strong observational constraints on cloud radiative properties. Such observations have been widely used for model evaluation, tuning, and improvement. Cloud radiative properties depend primarily on small, non-precipitating cloud droplets and ice crystals, yet the dynamical, microphysical and radiative processes which produce these small particles often involve large, precipitating hydrometeors. There now exists a global dataset of tropical cloud system precipitation feature (PF) properties, collected by TRMM and produced by Steve Nesbitt, that provides additional observational constraints on cloud system properties. We are using the TRMM PF dataset to evaluate the precipitation microphysics of two simulations of deep, precipitating, convective cloud systems: one is a 29-day summertime, continental case (ARM Summer 1997 SCM IOP, at the Southern Great Plains site); the second is a tropical maritime case: the Kwajalein MCS of 11-12 August 1999 (part of a 52-day simulation). Both simulations employed the same bulk, three-ice category microphysical parameterization (Krueger et al. 1995). The ARM simulation was executed using the UCLA/Utah 2D CRM, while the KWAJEX simulation was produced using the 3D CSU CRM (SAM). The KWAJEX simulation described above is compared with both the actual radar data and the TRMM statistics. For the Kwajalein MCS of 11 to 12 August 1999, there are research radar data available for the lifetime of the system. This particular MCS was large in size and rained heavily, but it was weak to average in measures of convective intensity, against the 5-year TRMM sample of 108. For the Kwajalein MCS simulation, the 20 dBZ contour is at 15.7 km and the 40 dBZ contour at 14.5 km! Of all 108 MCSs observed by TRMM, the highest value for the 40 dBZ contour is 8 km. Clearly, the high reflectivity cores are off scale compared with observed cloud systems in this area. A similar

Performance of high-resolution X-band radar for rainfall measurement in The Netherlands

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Z. van de Beek

2010-02-01

Full Text Available This study presents an analysis of 195 rainfall events gathered with the X-band weather radar SOLIDAR and a tipping bucket rain gauge network near Delft, The Netherlands, between May 1993 and April 1994. The aim of this paper is to present a thorough analysis of a climatological dataset using a high spatial (120 m and temporal (16 s resolution X-band radar. This makes it a study of the potential for high-resolution rainfall measurements with non-polarimetric X-band radar over flat terrain. An appropriate radar reflectivity – rain rate relation is derived from measurements of raindrop size distributions and compared with radar – rain gauge data. The radar calibration is assessed using a long-term comparison of rain gauge measurements with corresponding radar reflectivities as well as by analyzing the evolution of the stability of ground clutter areas over time. Three different methods for ground clutter correction as well as the effectiveness of forward and backward attenuation correction algorithms have been studied. Five individual rainfall events are discussed in detail to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of high-resolution X-band radar and the effectiveness of the presented correction methods. X-band radar is found to be able to measure the space-time variation of rainfall at high resolution, far greater than what can be achieved by rain gauge networks or a typical operational C-band weather radar. On the other hand, SOLIDAR can suffer from receiver saturation, wet radome attenuation as well as signal loss along the path. During very strong convective situations the signal can even be lost completely. In combination with several rain gauges for quality control, high resolution X-band radar is considered to be suitable for rainfall monitoring over relatively small (urban catchments. These results offer great prospects for the new high resolution polarimetric doppler X-band radar IDRA.

ATLID: atmospheric lidar for clouds and aerosol observation combined with radar sounding

Science.gov (United States)

Pain, Th.; Martimort, Ph.; Tanguy, Ph.; Leibrandt, W.; Heliere, A.

2017-11-01

The atmospheric lidar ATLID is part of the payload of the joint collaborative satellite mission Earth Cloud and Aerosol Explorer (EarthCARE) conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (JAXA). In December 2002, ESA granted Alcatel Space with a phase A study of the EarthCARE mission in which Alcatel Space is also in charge to define ATLID. The primary objective of ATLID at the horizon 2011 is to provide global observation of clouds in synergy with a cloud profiling radar (CPR) mounted on the same platform. The planned spaceborne mission also embarks an imager and a radiometer and shall fly for 3 years. The lidar design is based on a novel concept that maximises the scientific return and fosters a cost-effective approach. This improved capability results from a better understanding of the way optical characteristics of aerosol and clouds affect the performance budget. For that purpose, an end to end performance model has been developed utilising a versatile data retrieval method suitable for new and more conventional approaches. A synthesis of the achievable performance will be presented to illustrate the potential of the system together with a description of the design.

Design and development of a microwave multifrequency polarimetric scatterometer for biosphere remote sensing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stjernman, A.

1995-05-01

The main topic of this research report is the design and development of a multifrequency, polarimetric scatterometer for biosphere remote sensing. The system was developed using a standard HP network analyzer, a crossed log-periodic dipole antenna and a reflector. The scatterometer functions in a linear polarization basis between the L- and X-bands and gathers full-polarimetric information. The standard S-parameter measurements using the network analyzer were related to surface and volume scattering coefficients of rough surface, snow cover and vegetation media. The scatterometer measurements were carried out in the frequency domain to make use of narrow band filters in the receiver chain. The fast Fourier transform was used to convert the frequency domain measurements to the time domain. The range resolution of the system was 20 cm; azimuthal and elevation resolutions are determined by the antenna beam widths. Range side lobes were reduced by making use of appropriate weighting (Kaiser-Bessel window) functions. The accuracy of target characterization depends on the quality of scatterometer calibration. A novel technique to estimate the absolute gain and crosstalk of the radar system was developed. Using a distortion matrix approach, the cross-polarization response of the system was improved by 10 to 25 dB. The radar measurements were validated by comparing point target radar observations with the corresponding theoretical values. Also, measurements of fading decorrelation distance and decorrelation bandwidth or rough surfaces were in good agreement with the theory. Backscatter observations of vegetation and snow cover were comparable to earlier published values for a similar environment. 50 refs, 56 figs, 1 tab

Design and development of a microwave multifrequency polarimetric scatterometer for biosphere remote sensing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stjernman, A

1995-05-01

The main topic of this research report is the design and development of a multifrequency, polarimetric scatterometer for biosphere remote sensing. The system was developed using a standard HP network analyzer, a crossed log-periodic dipole antenna and a reflector. The scatterometer functions in a linear polarization basis between the L- and X-bands and gathers full-polarimetric information. The standard S-parameter measurements using the network analyzer were related to surface and volume scattering coefficients of rough surface, snow cover and vegetation media. The scatterometer measurements were carried out in the frequency domain to make use of narrow band filters in the receiver chain. The fast Fourier transform was used to convert the frequency domain measurements to the time domain. The range resolution of the system was 20 cm; azimuthal and elevation resolutions are determined by the antenna beam widths. Range side lobes were reduced by making use of appropriate weighting (Kaiser-Bessel window) functions. The accuracy of target characterization depends on the quality of scatterometer calibration. A novel technique to estimate the absolute gain and crosstalk of the radar system was developed. Using a distortion matrix approach, the cross-polarization response of the system was improved by 10 to 25 dB. The radar measurements were validated by comparing point target radar observations with the corresponding theoretical values. Also, measurements of fading decorrelation distance and decorrelation bandwidth or rough surfaces were in good agreement with the theory. Backscatter observations of vegetation and snow cover were comparable to earlier published values for a similar environment. 50 refs, 56 figs, 1 tab.

Estimation of Bridge Height over Water from Polarimetric SAR Image Data Using Mapping and Projection Algorithm and De-Orientation Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Haipeng; Xu, Feng; Jin, Ya-Qiu; Ouchi, Kazuo

An inversion method of bridge height over water by polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is developed. A geometric ray description to illustrate scattering mechanism of a bridge over water surface is identified by polarimetric image analysis. Using the mapping and projecting algorithm, a polarimetric SAR image of a bridge model is first simulated and shows that scattering from a bridge over water can be identified by three strip lines corresponding to single-, double-, and triple-order scattering, respectively. A set of polarimetric parameters based on the de-orientation theory is applied to analysis of three types scattering, and the thinning-clustering algorithm and Hough transform are then employed to locate the image positions of these strip lines. These lines are used to invert the bridge height. Fully polarimetric image data of airborne Pi-SAR at X-band are applied to inversion of the height and width of the Naruto Bridge in Japan. Based on the same principle, this approach is also applicable to spaceborne ALOSPALSAR single-polarization data of the Eastern Ocean Bridge in China. The results show good feasibility to realize the bridge height inversion.

Forest height estimation from mountain forest areas using general model-based decomposition for polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar images

Science.gov (United States)

Minh, Nghia Pham; Zou, Bin; Cai, Hongjun; Wang, Chengyi

2014-01-01

The estimation of forest parameters over mountain forest areas using polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PolInSAR) images is one of the greatest interests in remote sensing applications. For mountain forest areas, scattering mechanisms are strongly affected by the ground topography variations. Most of the previous studies in modeling microwave backscattering signatures of forest area have been carried out over relatively flat areas. Therefore, a new algorithm for the forest height estimation from mountain forest areas using the general model-based decomposition (GMBD) for PolInSAR image is proposed. This algorithm enables the retrieval of not only the forest parameters, but also the magnitude associated with each mechanism. In addition, general double- and single-bounce scattering models are proposed to fit for the cross-polarization and off-diagonal term by separating their independent orientation angle, which remains unachieved in the previous model-based decompositions. The efficiency of the proposed approach is demonstrated with simulated data from PolSARProSim software and ALOS-PALSAR spaceborne PolInSAR datasets over the Kalimantan areas, Indonesia. Experimental results indicate that forest height could be effectively estimated by GMBD.

Radar Control Optimal Resource Allocation

Science.gov (United States)

2015-07-13

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada by the McMaster University Intelligent PIXel (IPIX) X-band Polarimetric Coherent Radar during the OHGR - Dartmouth...following coefficients [ q2, 4p22q, 12p12q, 12p11q, 12|P | ] (26) for A4 and [ q2, 4p22q, 4q(3 p12 + r22), 12(p11q + p22r22 − qr12), 12(|P |+ 2r22p12

Monitoring flooding and vegetation on seasonally inundated floodplains with multifrequency polarimetric synthetic aperture radar

Science.gov (United States)

Hess, Laura Lorraine

The ability of synthetic aperture radar to detect flooding and vegetation structure was evaluated for three seasonally inundated floodplain sites supporting a broad variety of wetland and upland vegetation types: two reaches of the Solimoes floodplain in the central Amazon, and the Magela Creek floodplain in Northern Territory, Australia. For each site, C- and L-band polarimetric Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) data was obtained at both high- and low-water stages. Inundation status and vegetation structure were documented simultaneous with the SIR-C acquisitions using low-altitude videography and ground measurements. SIR-C images were classified into cover states defined by vegetation physiognomy and presence of standing water, using a decision-tree model with backscattering coefficients at HH, VV, and HV polarizations as input variables. Classification accuracy was assessed using user's accuracy, producer's accuracy, and kappa coefficient for a test population of pixels. At all sites, both C- and L-band were necessary to accurately classify cover types with two dates. HH polarization was most. useful for distinguishing flooded from non-flooded vegetation (C-HH for macrophyte versus pasture, L-HH for flooded versus non-flooded forest), and cross-polarized L-band data provided the best separation between woody and non-woody vegetation. Increases in L-HH backscattering due to flooding were on the order of 3--4 dB for closed-canopy varzea and igapo forest, and 4--7 dB, for open Melaleuca woodland. The broad range of physiognomies and stand structures found in both herbaceous and woody wetland communities, combined with the variation in the amount of emergent canopy caused by water level fluctuations and phenologic changes, resulted in a large range in backscattering characteristics of wetland communities both within and between sites. High accuracies cannot be achieved for these communities using single-date, single-band, single-polarization data, particularly in the

Typhoon 9707 observations with the MU radar and L-band boundary layer radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Teshiba

2001-08-01

Full Text Available Typhoon 9707 (Opal was observed with the VHF-band Middle and Upper atmosphere (MU radar, an L-band boundary layer radar (BLR, and a vertical-pointing C-band meteorological radar at the Shigaraki MU Observatory in Shiga prefecture, Japan on 20 June 1997. The typhoon center passed about 80 km southeast from the radar site. Mesoscale precipitating clouds developed due to warm-moist airmass transport from the typhoon, and passed over the MU radar site with easterly or southeasterly winds. We primarily present the wind behaviour including the vertical component which a conventional meteorological Doppler radar cannot directly observe, and discuss the relationship between the wind behaviour of the typhoon and the precipitating system. To investigate the dynamic structure of the typhoon, the observed wind was divided into radial and tangential wind components under the assumption that the typhoon had an axi-symmetric structure. Altitude range of outflow ascended from 1–3 km to 2–10 km with increasing distance (within 80–260 km range from the typhoon center, and in-flow was observed above and below the outflow. Outflow and inflow were associated with updraft and downdraft, respectively. In the tangential wind, the maximum speed of counterclockwise winds was confirmed at 1–2 km altitudes. Based on the vertical velocity and the reflectivity obtained with the MU radar and the C-band meteorological radar, respectively, precipitating clouds, accompanied by the wind behaviour of the typhoon, were classified into stratiform and convective precipitating clouds. In the stratiform precipitating clouds, a vertical shear of radial wind and the maximum speed of counterclockwise wind were observed. There was a strong reflectivity layer called a ‘bright band’ around the 4.2 km altitude. We confirmed strong updrafts and down-drafts below and above it, respectively, and the existence of a relatively dry layer around the bright band level from radiosonde

Typhoon 9707 observations with the MU radar and L-band boundary layer radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Teshiba

Full Text Available Typhoon 9707 (Opal was observed with the VHF-band Middle and Upper atmosphere (MU radar, an L-band boundary layer radar (BLR, and a vertical-pointing C-band meteorological radar at the Shigaraki MU Observatory in Shiga prefecture, Japan on 20 June 1997. The typhoon center passed about 80 km southeast from the radar site. Mesoscale precipitating clouds developed due to warm-moist airmass transport from the typhoon, and passed over the MU radar site with easterly or southeasterly winds. We primarily present the wind behaviour including the vertical component which a conventional meteorological Doppler radar cannot directly observe, and discuss the relationship between the wind behaviour of the typhoon and the precipitating system. To investigate the dynamic structure of the typhoon, the observed wind was divided into radial and tangential wind components under the assumption that the typhoon had an axi-symmetric structure. Altitude range of outflow ascended from 1–3 km to 2–10 km with increasing distance (within 80–260 km range from the typhoon center, and in-flow was observed above and below the outflow. Outflow and inflow were associated with updraft and downdraft, respectively. In the tangential wind, the maximum speed of counterclockwise winds was confirmed at 1–2 km altitudes. Based on the vertical velocity and the reflectivity obtained with the MU radar and the C-band meteorological radar, respectively, precipitating clouds, accompanied by the wind behaviour of the typhoon, were classified into stratiform and convective precipitating clouds. In the stratiform precipitating clouds, a vertical shear of radial wind and the maximum speed of counterclockwise wind were observed. There was a strong reflectivity layer called a ‘bright band’ around the 4.2 km altitude. We confirmed strong updrafts and down-drafts below and above it, respectively, and the existence of a relatively dry layer around the bright band level from radiosonde

Feature-Based Nonlocal Polarimetric SAR Filtering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaoli Xing

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR images are inherently contaminated by multiplicative speckle noise, which complicates the image interpretation and image analyses. To reduce the speckle effect, several adaptive speckle filters have been developed based on the weighted average of the similarity measures commonly depending on the model or probability distribution, which are often affected by the distribution parameters and modeling texture components. In this paper, a novel filtering method introduces the coefficient of variance ( CV and Pauli basis (PB to measure the similarity, and the two features are combined with the framework of the nonlocal mean filtering. The CV is used to describe the complexity of various scenes and distinguish the scene heterogeneity; moreover, the Pauli basis is able to express the polarimetric information in PolSAR image processing. This proposed filtering combines the CV and Pauli basis to improve the estimation accuracy of the similarity weights. Then, the similarity of the features is deduced according to the test statistic. Subsequently, the filtering is proceeded by using the nonlocal weighted estimation. The performance of the proposed filter is tested with the simulated images and real PolSAR images, which are acquired by AIRSAR system and ESAR system. The qualitative and quantitative experiments indicate the validity of the proposed method by comparing with the widely-used despeckling methods.

Raindrop Size Distribution in Different Climatic Regimes from Disdrometer and Dual-Polarized Radar Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Bringi, V. N.; Chandrasekar, V.; Hubbert, J.; Gorgucci, E.; Randeu, W. L.; Schoenhuber, M.

2003-01-01

The application of polarimetric radar data to the retrieval of raindrop size distribution parameters and rain rate in samples of convective and stratiform rain types is presented. Data from the Colorado State University (CSU), CHILL, NCAR S-band polarimetric (S-Pol), and NASA Kwajalein radars are analyzed for the statistics and functional relation of these parameters with rain rate. Surface drop size distribution measurements using two different disdrometers (2D video and RD-69) from a number of climatic regimes are analyzed and compared with the radar retrievals in a statistical and functional approach. The composite statistics based on disdrometer and radar retrievals suggest that, on average, the two parameters (generalized intercept and median volume diameter) for stratiform rain distributions lie on a straight line with negative slope, which appears to be consistent with variations in the microphysics of stratiform precipitation (melting of larger, dry snow particles versus smaller, rimed ice particles). In convective rain, `maritime-like' and `continental-like' clusters could be identified in the same two-parameter space that are consistent with the different multiplicative coefficients in the Z = aR1.5 relations quoted in the literature for maritime and continental regimes.

Analytical Research by Computer Simulation of Developmental Polarimetric/Frequency Agile Pulsed Radars.

Science.gov (United States)

1982-12-01

scattering matrix format so that the entire radar signature will be available for future radar hardware and simulator designers . Without such data and...validated models the radar system analyst and designer will continue to suffer from the so called "Sedenquist Effect" that is, put two radar engineers...P4AsME 7Em VAMqA5OIE I uU04 I.ATEGE.4. VARIAdLE AVAL U00036 REAL*4 VAmIAdLE CAdS vu0uvi4 iKEA *4 sN(,CEOumE CUM"Uiv iLUC.A /AUOX L.Ei#GTH 04UOaUt HO0SAV

Marsh dieback, loss, and recovery mapped with satellite optical, airborne polarimetric radar, and field data

Science.gov (United States)

Ramsey, Elijah W.; Rangoonwala, Amina; Chi, Zhaohui; Jones, Cathleen E.; Bannister, Terri

2014-01-01

Landsat Thematic Mapper and Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) satellite based optical sensors, NASA Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle synthetic aperture radar (UAVSAR) polarimetric SAR (PolSAR), and field data captured the occurrence and the recovery of an undetected dieback that occurred between the summers of 2010, 2011, and 2012 in the Spartina alterniflora marshes of coastal Louisiana. Field measurements recorded the dramatic biomass decrease from 2010 to 2011 and a biomass recovery in 2012 dominated by a decrease of live biomass, and the loss of marsh as part of the dieback event. Based on an established relationship, the near-infrared/red vegetation index (VI) and site-specific measurements delineated a contiguous expanse of marsh dieback encompassing 6649.9 ha of 18,292.3 ha of S. alterniflora marshes within the study region. PolSAR data were transformed to variables used in biophysical mapping, and of this variable suite, the cross-polarization HV (horizontal send and vertical receive) backscatter was the best single indicator of marsh dieback and recovery. HV backscatter exhibited substantial and significant changes over the dieback and recovery period, tracked measured biomass changes, and significantly correlated with the live/dead biomass ratio. Within the context of regional trends, both HV and VI indicators started higher in pre-dieback marshes and exhibited substantially and statistically higher variability from year to year than that exhibited in the non-dieback marshes. That distinct difference allowed the capturing of the S. alterniflora marsh dieback and recovery; however, these changes were incorporated in a regional trend exhibiting similar but more subtle biomass composition changes.

Crop Classification by Polarimetric SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning; Svendsen, Morten Thougaard; Nielsen, Flemming

1999-01-01

Polarimetric SAR-data of agricultural fields have been acquired by the Danish polarimetric L- and C-band SAR (EMISAR) during a number of missions at the Danish agricultural test site Foulum during 1995. The data are used to study the classification potential of polarimetric SAR data using...

Underwater Topography Detection in Coastal Areas Using Fully Polarimetric SAR Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaolin Bian

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR can provide detailed information on scattering mechanisms that could enable the target or structure to be identified. This paper presents a method to detect underwater topography in coastal areas using high resolution fully polarimetric SAR data, while less prior information is required. The method is based on the shoaling and refraction of long surface gravity waves as they propagate shoreward. First, the surface scattering component is obtained by polarization decomposition. Then, wave fields are retrieved from the two-dimensional (2D spectra by the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT. Finally, shallow water depths are estimated from the dispersion relation. Applicability and effectiveness of the proposed methodology are tested by using C-band fine quad-polarization mode RADARSAT-2 SAR data over the near-shore area of the Hainan province, China. By comparing with the values from an official electronic navigational chart (ENC, the estimated water depths are in good agreement with them. The average relative error of the detected results from the scattering mechanisms based method and single polarization SAR data are 9.73% and 11.53% respectively. The validation results indicate that the scattering mechanisms based methodology is more effective than only using the single polarization SAR data for underwater topography detection, and will inspire further research on underwater topography detection with fully polarimetric SAR data.

Detection of Weather Radar Clutter

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bøvith, Thomas

2008-01-01

classification and use a range of different techniques and input data. The first method uses external information from multispectral satellite images to detect clutter. The information in the visual, near-infrared, and infrared parts of the spectrum can be used to distinguish between cloud and cloud-free areas......Weather radars provide valuable information on precipitation in the atmosphere but due to the way radars work, not only precipitation is observed by the weather radar. Weather radar clutter, echoes from non-precipitating targets, occur frequently in the data, resulting in lowered data quality....... Especially in the application of weather radar data in quantitative precipitation estimation and forecasting a high data quality is important. Clutter detection is one of the key components in achieving this goal. This thesis presents three methods for detection of clutter. The methods use supervised...

Radar for Measuring Soil Moisture Under Vegetation

Science.gov (United States)

Moghaddam, Mahta; Moller, Delwyn; Rodriguez, Ernesto; Rahmat-Samii, Yahya

2004-01-01

A two-frequency, polarimetric, spaceborne synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) system has been proposed for measuring the moisture content of soil as a function of depth, even in the presence of overlying vegetation. These measurements are needed because data on soil moisture under vegetation canopies are not available now and are necessary for completing mathematical models of global energy and water balance with major implications for global variations in weather and climate.

Monsoon Convective During the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment: Observations from Ground-Based Radar and the TRMM Satellite

Science.gov (United States)

Cifelli, Rob; Rickenbach, Tom; Halverson, Jeff; Keenan, Tom; Kucera, Paul; Atkinson, Lester; Fisher, Brad; Gerlach, John; Harris, Kathy; Kaufman, Cristina

1999-01-01

A main goal of the recent South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX) was to study convective processes associated with the onset of the Southeast Asian summer monsoon. The NASA TOGA C-band scanning radar was deployed on the Chinese research vessel Shi Yan #3 for two 20 day cruises, collecting dual-Doppler measurements in conjunction with the BMRC C-Pol dual-polarimetric radar on Dongsha Island. Soundings and surface meteorological data were also collected with an NCAR Integrated Sounding System (ISS). This experiment was the first major tropical field campaign following the launch of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. These observations of tropical oceanic convection provided an opportunity to make comparisons between surface radar measurements and the Precipitation Radar (PR) aboard the TRMM satellite in an oceanic environment. Nearly continuous radar operations were conducted during two Intensive Observing Periods (IOPS) straddling the onset of the monsoon (5-25 May 1998 and 5-25 June 1998). Mesoscale lines of convection with widespread regions of both trailing and forward stratiform precipitation were observed following the onset of the active monsoon in the northern South China Sea region. The vertical structure of the convection during periods of strong westerly flow and relatively moist environmental conditions in the lower to mid-troposphere contrasted sharply with convection observed during periods of low level easterlies, weak shear, and relatively dry conditions in the mid to upper troposphere. Several examples of mesoscale convection will be shown from the ground (ship)-based and spaceborne radar data during times of TRMM satellite overpasses. Examples of pre-monsoon convection, characterized by isolated cumulonimbus and shallow, precipitating congestus clouds, will also be discussed.

Characterization of wetland, forest, and agricultural ecosystems in Belize with airborne radar (AIRSAR)

Science.gov (United States)

Pope, Kevin O.; Rey-Benayas, Jose Maria; Paris, Jack F.

1992-01-01

The Shuttle Imaging Radar-C/X-SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Experiment includes the study of wetland dynamics in the seasonal tropics. In preparation for these wetland studies, airborne P, L, and C band radar (AIRSAR) data of Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico acquired by NASA and JPL in March 1990 were analyzed. The first phase of our study focuses on AIRSAR data from the Gallon Jug test site in northwestern Belize, for which ground data were also collected during the three days prior to the overflight. One of the main objectives of the Gallon Jug study is to develop a method for characterizing wetland vegetation types and their flooding status with multifrequency polarimetric radar data.

MST radar and polarization lidar observations of tropical cirrus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y. Bhavani Kumar

2001-08-01

Full Text Available Significant gaps in our understanding of global cirrus effects on the climate system involve the role of frequently occurring tropical cirrus. Much of the cirrus in the atmosphere is largely due to frequent cumulus and convective activity in the tropics. In the Indian sub-tropical region, the deep convective activity is very prominent from April to December, which is a favorable period for the formation of deep cumulus clouds. The fibrous anvils of these clouds, laden with ice crystals, are one of the source mechanisms for much of the cirrus in the atmosphere. In the present study, several passages of tropical cirrus were investigated by simultaneously operating MST radar and a co-located polarization lidar at the National MST Radar Facility (NMRF, Gadanki (13.45° N, 79.18° E, India to understand its structure, the background wind field and the microphysics at the cloud boundaries. The lidar system used is capable of measuring the degree of depolarization in the laser backscatter. It has identified several different cirrus structures with a peak linear depolarization ratio (LDR in the range of 0.1 to 0.32. Simultaneous observations of tropical cirrus by the VHF Doppler radar indicated a clear enhancement of reflectivity detected in the vicinity of the cloud boundaries, as revealed by the lidar and are strongly dependent on observed cloud LDR. An inter-comparison of radar reflectivity observed for vertical and oblique beams reveals that the radar-enhanced reflectivity at the cloud boundaries is also accompanied by significant aspect sensitivity. These observations indicate the presence of anisotropic turbulence at the cloud boundaries. Radar velocity measurements show that boundaries of cirrus are associated with enhanced horizontal winds, significant vertical shear in the horizontal winds and reduced vertical velocity. Therefore, these measurements indicate that a circulation at the cloud boundaries suggest an entrainment taking place close to

MST radar and polarization lidar observations of tropical cirrus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y. Bhavani Kumar

Full Text Available Significant gaps in our understanding of global cirrus effects on the climate system involve the role of frequently occurring tropical cirrus. Much of the cirrus in the atmosphere is largely due to frequent cumulus and convective activity in the tropics. In the Indian sub-tropical region, the deep convective activity is very prominent from April to December, which is a favorable period for the formation of deep cumulus clouds. The fibrous anvils of these clouds, laden with ice crystals, are one of the source mechanisms for much of the cirrus in the atmosphere. In the present study, several passages of tropical cirrus were investigated by simultaneously operating MST radar and a co-located polarization lidar at the National MST Radar Facility (NMRF, Gadanki (13.45° N, 79.18° E, India to understand its structure, the background wind field and the microphysics at the cloud boundaries. The lidar system used is capable of measuring the degree of depolarization in the laser backscatter. It has identified several different cirrus structures with a peak linear depolarization ratio (LDR in the range of 0.1 to 0.32. Simultaneous observations of tropical cirrus by the VHF Doppler radar indicated a clear enhancement of reflectivity detected in the vicinity of the cloud boundaries, as revealed by the lidar and are strongly dependent on observed cloud LDR. An inter-comparison of radar reflectivity observed for vertical and oblique beams reveals that the radar-enhanced reflectivity at the cloud boundaries is also accompanied by significant aspect sensitivity. These observations indicate the presence of anisotropic turbulence at the cloud boundaries. Radar velocity measurements show that boundaries of cirrus are associated with enhanced horizontal winds, significant vertical shear in the horizontal winds and reduced vertical velocity. Therefore, these measurements indicate that a circulation at the cloud boundaries suggest an entrainment taking place close to

Quantifying uncertainties in radar forward models through a comparison between CloudSat and SPartICus reflectivity factors

Science.gov (United States)

Mascio, Jeana; Mace, Gerald G.

2017-02-01

Interpretations of remote sensing measurements collected in sample volumes containing ice-phase hydrometeors are very sensitive to assumptions regarding the distributions of mass with ice crystal dimension, otherwise known as mass-dimensional or m-D relationships. How these microphysical characteristics vary in nature is highly uncertain, resulting in significant uncertainty in algorithms that attempt to derive bulk microphysical properties from remote sensing measurements. This uncertainty extends to radar reflectivity factors forward calculated from model output because the statistics of the actual m-D in nature is not known. To investigate the variability in m-D relationships in cirrus clouds, reflectivity factors measured by CloudSat are combined with particle size distributions (PSDs) collected by coincident in situ aircraft by using an optimal estimation-based (OE) retrieval of the m-D power law. The PSDs were collected by 12 flights of the Stratton Park Engineering Company Learjet during the Small Particles in Cirrus campaign. We find that no specific habit emerges as preferred, and instead, we find that the microphysical characteristics of ice crystal populations tend to be distributed over a continuum-defying simple categorization. With the uncertainties derived from the OE algorithm, the uncertainties in forward-modeled backscatter cross section and, in turn, radar reflectivity is calculated by using a bootstrapping technique, allowing us to infer the uncertainties in forward-modeled radar reflectivity that would be appropriately applied to remote sensing simulator algorithms.

The role of cloud-scale resolution on radiative properties of oceanic cumulus clouds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kassianov, Evgueni; Ackerman, Thomas; Kollias, Pavlos

2005-01-01

Both individual and combined effects of the horizontal and vertical variability of cumulus clouds on solar radiative transfer are investigated using a two-dimensional (x- and z-directions) cloud radar dataset. This high-resolution dataset of typical fair-weather marine cumulus is derived from ground-based 94GHz cloud radar observations. The domain-averaged (along x-direction) radiative properties are computed by a Monte Carlo method. It is shown that (i) different cloud-scale resolutions can be used for accurate calculations of the mean absorption, upward and downward fluxes; (ii) the resolution effects can depend strongly on the solar zenith angle; and (iii) a few cloud statistics can be successfully applied for calculating the averaged radiative properties

Cloud Type Classification (cldtype) Value-Added Product

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Flynn, Donna [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Shi, Yan [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lim, K-S [Korean Atomic Energy Research Inst., Daejeon (South Korea); Riihimaki, Laura [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2017-08-15

The Cloud Type (cldtype) value-added product (VAP) provides an automated cloud type classification based on macrophysical quantities derived from vertically pointing lidar and radar. Up to 10 layers of clouds are classified into seven cloud types based on predetermined and site-specific thresholds of cloud top, base and thickness. Examples of thresholds for selected U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility sites are provided in Tables 1 and 2. Inputs for the cldtype VAP include lidar and radar cloud boundaries obtained from the Active Remotely Sensed Cloud Location (ARSCL) and Surface Meteorological Systems (MET) data. Rain rates from MET are used to determine when radar signal attenuation precludes accurate cloud detection. Temporal resolution and vertical resolution for cldtype are 1 minute and 30 m respectively and match the resolution of ARSCL. The cldtype classification is an initial step for further categorization of clouds. It was developed for use by the Shallow Cumulus VAP to identify potential periods of interest to the LASSO model and is intended to find clouds of interest for a variety of users.

Flash propagation and inferred charge structure relative to radar-observed ice alignment signatures in a small Florida mesoscale convective system

Science.gov (United States)

Biggerstaff, Michael I.; Zounes, Zackery; Addison Alford, A.; Carrie, Gordon D.; Pilkey, John T.; Uman, Martin A.; Jordan, Douglas M.

2017-08-01

A series of vertical cross sections taken through a small mesoscale convective system observed over Florida by the dual-polarimetric SMART radar were combined with VHF radiation source locations from a lightning mapping array (LMA) to examine the lightning channel propagation paths relative to the radar-observed ice alignment signatures associated with regions of negative specific differential phase (KDP). Additionally, charge layers inferred from analysis of LMA sources were related to the ice alignment signature. It was found that intracloud flashes initiated near the upper zero-KDP boundary surrounding the negative KDP region. The zero-KDP boundary also delineated the propagation path of the lightning channel with the negative leaders following the upper boundary and positive leaders following the lower boundary. Very few LMA sources were found in the negative KDP region. We conclude that rapid dual-polarimetric radar observations can diagnose strong electric fields and may help identify surrounding regions of charge.

Analysis of dual polarization images of precipitating clouds collected by the COSMO SkyMed constellation

Science.gov (United States)

Baldini, Luca; Roberto, Nicoletta; Gorgucci, Eugenio; Fritz, Jason; Chandrasekar, V.

2014-07-01

Currently, several satellite missions are employing X-band synthetic aperture radars (SAR) with polarimetric capabilities. In images collected over land by X-band SAR, precipitation results mainly in evident attenuation of the surface returns. Effects of precipitation in polarimetric SAR images and how to exploit them for precipitation studies are emerging topics of interest. This paper investigates polarimetric signatures of precipitation in images collected by the X-band SARs of the Italian Space Agency COSMO SkyMed constellation using the HH-VV alternate polarimetric mode. Analyzed images were collected in 2010 when the constellation was composed of three satellites and operated in the “tandem like” interferometric configuration, which allowed acquisition of the same scene with the same viewing geometry and a minimum decorrelation time of one day. Observations collected in Piedmont (Italy) and Tampa Bay (Florida, US) have been analyzed along with coincident observations collected by operational weather radars, used to reconstruct the component of SAR returns due to precipitation at horizontal and vertical polarization states. Different techniques are used depending on the different characteristics of terrestrial radars. SAR observations reconstructed from terrestrial measurements are in fairly good agreement with actual SAR observations. Results confirm that the attenuation signature in SAR images collected over land is particularly pronounced in the presence of precipitation cells and can be related to the radar reflectivity integrated along the same path. The difference between copolar HH and VV power measurements reveals a differential attenuation due to anisotropy of precipitation, whose range is limited when the SAR incidence angle is low. A specific feature observed in the CosmoSkyMed alternate polarization implementation is the presence of the scalloping effect, a periodic effect along the azimuth direction that cannot always be removed by standard de

Emergent radar technologies and innovative multifractal methodologies for new prospects in urban hydrology

Science.gov (United States)

Tchiguirinskaia, Ioulia; Schertzer, Daniel; Paz, Igor; Gires, Auguste; Ichiba, Abdellah; Scour-Plakali, Elektra; Lee, Jisun

2017-04-01

To make our cities weather ready and climate proof has become a fundamental societal issue in the context of an on-going urbanization and growing population density (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation/). This is a challenging question in a region like Île-de-France, which corresponds to one of the largest, if not the largest, concentration of assets and infrastructures in Europe. More than ever, there is an urgent need to cross-fertilise research and operational hydrology, whereas they have both suffered from a long-lasting divorce (Schertzer et al., 2010). A preliminary step is to use the best available measurement technologies. In this presentation we discuss the potentials of the polarimetric X-band radar technology to measure small scale rainfalls in urban environment. Particularly intense rainy episodes have struck hard various regions of France during the period of May-June 2016, notably Ile-de-France and its neighbourhoods. The data collected during those days by the X-band radar of Ecole des Pont ParisTech (http://www.enpc.fr/hydrologie-meteorologie-et-complexite) allow to observe the fast aggregation of strong cells of small sizes in a multi-cellular thunderstorm. Certain cells make initially hardly more than a radar pixel (250m x 250m), while just three quarters of hour later they form a multi-cellular well-organised thunderstorm over tenths of kilometres. These observations have triggered the development of new methods of immediate forecast taking into account the multi-scale and strongly intermittent character of such rainfall fields to better manage the crises, particularly for strongly vulnerable urban systems. We present the results of the multifractal analysis and simulations of the polarimetric X-band radar data that first contribute to better understanding of the three-dimensional dynamics of such events, and then allows representing of how strong cores of haste precipitation contribute to the rainfall amounts striking the ground. The

Millimeter-Wave Radar Field Measurements and Inversion of Cloud Parameters for the 1999 Mt. Washington Icing Sensors Project

Science.gov (United States)

Pazmany, Andrew L.; Reehorst, Andrew (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

The Mount Washington Icing Sensors Project (MWISP) was a multi-investigator experiment with participants from Quadrant Engineering, NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory (NOAA/ETL), the Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (MIRSL) of the University of Massachusetts (UMass), and others. Radar systems from UMass and NOAA/ETL were used to measure X-, Ka-, and W-band backscatter data from the base of Mt. Washington, while simultaneous in-situ particle measurements were made from aircraft and from the observatory at the summit. This report presents range and time profiles of liquid water content and particle size parameters derived from range profiles of radar reflectivity as measured at X-, Ka-, and W-band (9.3, 33.1, and 94.9 GHz) using an artificial neural network inversion algorithm. In this report, we provide a brief description of the experiment configuration, radar systems, and a review of the artificial neural network used to extract cloud parameters from the radar data. Time histories of liquid water content (LWC), mean volume diameter (MVD) and mean Z diameter (MZD) are plotted at 300 m range intervals for slant ranges between 1.1 and 4 km. Appendix A provides details on the extraction of radar reflectivity from measured radar power, and Appendix B provides summary logs of the weather conditions for each day in which we processed data.

Polarimetric survey of main-belt asteroids. V. The unusual polarimetric behavior of V-type asteroids

Science.gov (United States)

Gil-Hutton, R.; López-Sisterna, C.; Calandra, M. F.

2017-03-01

Aims: We present the results of a polarimetric survey of main-belt asteroids at Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito (CASLEO), San Juan, Argentina. The aims of this survey are to increase the database of asteroid polarimetry, to estimate diversity in polarimetric properties of asteroids that belong to different taxonomic classes, and to search for objects that exhibit anomalous polarimetric properties. Methods: The data were obtained using the CASPROF and CASPOL polarimeters at the 2.15 m telescope. The CASPROF polarimeter is a two-hole aperture polarimeter with rapid modulation and CASPOL is a polarimeter based on a CCD detector, which allows us to observe fainter objects with better signal-to-noise ratio. Results: The survey began in 1995 and data on a large sample of asteroids were obtained until 2012. A second period began in 2013 using a polarimeter with a more sensitive detector in order to study small asteroids, families, and special taxonomic groups. We obtained 55 polarimetric measurements for 28 V-type main belt asteroids, all of them polarimetrically observed for the first time. The data obtained in this survey let us find polarimetric parameters for (1459) Magnya and for a group of 11 small V-type objects with similar polarimetric behavior. These polarization curves are unusual since they show a shallow minimum and a small inversion angle in comparison with (4) Vesta, although they have a steeper slope at α0. This polarimetric behavior could be explained by differences in the regoliths of these asteroids. The observations of (2579) Spartacus, and perhaps also (3944) Halliday, indicate a inversion angle larger than 24-25°. Based on observations carried out at the Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito, operated under agreement between the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la República Argentina and the National Universities of La Plata, Córdoba, and San Juan.

A high resolution polarimetric L-band SAR-design and first results

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skou, Niels; Granholm, Johan; Woelders, Kim

1995-01-01

the range of the radar is 64 km with a noise equivalent sigma naught of -20 dB. The antenna is a stacked microstrip patch array with the feed structure on the back side of the antenna panel to reduce unwanted radiation. The cross polar level is below -35 dB. The polarization switch is a relatively...... over the EMISAR calibration scene: An agricultural site in Denmark featuring a range of different fields and forested areas as well as several trihedrals and dihedrals. Based on the imagery data, sensor performance is assessed. The L- & C-band polarimetric EMISAR instrument is one of the key sensors...

Differential Absorption Radar: An Emerging Technology for Remote Sounding of Water Vapor Within Clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Lebsock, M. D.; Millan Valle, L. F.; Cooper, K. B.; Siles, J.; Monje, R.

2017-12-01

We present the results of our efforts to build and demonstrate the first Differential Absorption Radar (DAR), which will provide unique capabilities to remotely sound for water vapor within cloudy and precipitating atmospheres. The approach leverages multiple radar channels located near the 183 GHz water vapor absorption feature to simultaneously derive microphysical and water vapor profiles. The DAR technique has the potential to neatly complement existing water vapor sounding techniques such as infrared and microwave sounding and GPS radio occultation. These precisions rival those of existing water vapor remote sensing instruments. The approach works best from above clouds because the water vapor burden and line width increases towards the Earth surface allowing increased sampling from the top-down compared with bottom-up. From an airborne or satellite platform channels can be selected that target either upper-tropospheric or lower-tropospheric clouds. Our theoretical studies suggest that the water vapor concentration can be retrieved to within 1-3 gm-3 and the column integrated water vapor can be retrieved to within 1 kgm-2. The high-frequency radar is only recently enabled by technological advances that have allowed us to demonstrate 0.5 W of continuous power near 183 GHz. We are currently developing an airborne DAR using a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) architecture with a quasi-optical duplexer providing 80 dB of transmit/receive isolation. A prototype of this instrument recently made the first ever range resolved DAR measurements of humidity out to several hundred meters during a light rain event at JPL. The spectral dependence of the attenuation was in excellent agreement with the predicted attenuation based on nearby weather stations, proving for the first time the feasibility of the concept. A major impediment to implementing DAR is the international regulation of radio-frequency transmissions below 300 GHz. The major roadblocks and potential

Performance of Scattering Matrix Decomposition and Color Spaces for Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery

Science.gov (United States)

2010-03-01

Color Spaces and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Multicolor Imaging. 15 2.3.1 Colorimetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.3.2...III. Decomposition Techniques on SAR Polarimetry and Colorimetry applied to SAR Imagery...space polarimetric SAR systems. Colorimetry is also introduced in this chapter, presenting the fundamentals of the RGB and CMY color spaces, defined for

Pyxis handheld polarimetric imager

Science.gov (United States)

Chenault, David B.; Pezzaniti, J. Larry; Vaden, Justin P.

2016-05-01

The instrumentation for measuring infrared polarization signatures has seen significant advancement over the last decade. Previous work has shown the value of polarimetric imagery for a variety of target detection scenarios including detection of manmade targets in clutter and detection of ground and maritime targets while recent work has shown improvements in contrast for aircraft detection and biometric markers. These data collection activities have generally used laboratory or prototype systems with limitations on the allowable amount of target motion or the sensor platform and usually require an attached computer for data acquisition and processing. Still, performance and sensitivity have been steadily getting better while size, weight, and power requirements have been getting smaller enabling polarimetric imaging for a greater or real world applications. In this paper, we describe Pyxis®, a microbolometer based imaging polarimeter that produces live polarimetric video of conventional, polarimetric, and fused image products. A polarization microgrid array integrated in the optical system captures all polarization states simultaneously and makes the system immune to motion artifacts of either the sensor or the scene. The system is battery operated, rugged, and weighs about a quarter pound, and can be helmet mounted or handheld. On board processing of polarization and fused image products enable the operator to see polarimetric signatures in real time. Both analog and digital outputs are possible with sensor control available through a tablet interface. A top level description of Pyxis® is given followed by performance characteristics and representative data.

Efficient polarimetric BRDF model.

Science.gov (United States)

Renhorn, Ingmar G E; Hallberg, Tomas; Boreman, Glenn D

2015-11-30

The purpose of the present manuscript is to present a polarimetric bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model suitable for hyperspectral and polarimetric signature modelling. The model is based on a further development of a previously published four-parameter model that has been generalized in order to account for different types of surface structures (generalized Gaussian distribution). A generalization of the Lambertian diffuse model is presented. The pBRDF-functions are normalized using numerical integration. Using directional-hemispherical reflectance (DHR) measurements, three of the four basic parameters can be determined for any wavelength. This simplifies considerably the development of multispectral polarimetric BRDF applications. The scattering parameter has to be determined from at least one BRDF measurement. The model deals with linear polarized radiation; and in similarity with e.g. the facet model depolarization is not included. The model is very general and can inherently model extreme surfaces such as mirrors and Lambertian surfaces. The complex mixture of sources is described by the sum of two basic models, a generalized Gaussian/Fresnel model and a generalized Lambertian model. Although the physics inspired model has some ad hoc features, the predictive power of the model is impressive over a wide range of angles and scattering magnitudes. The model has been applied successfully to painted surfaces, both dull and glossy and also on metallic bead blasted surfaces. The simple and efficient model should be attractive for polarimetric simulations and polarimetric remote sensing.

Mapping Forest Cover and Forest Cover Change with Airborne S-Band Radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ramesh K. Ningthoujam

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Assessments of forest cover, forest carbon stocks and carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation are increasingly important components of sustainable resource management, for combating biodiversity loss and in climate mitigation policies. Satellite remote sensing provides the only means for mapping global forest cover regularly. However, forest classification with optical data is limited by its insensitivity to three-dimensional canopy structure and cloud cover obscuring many forest regions. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR sensors are increasingly being used to mitigate these problems, mainly in the L-, C- and X-band domains of the electromagnetic spectrum. S-band has not been systematically studied for this purpose. In anticipation of the British built NovaSAR-S satellite mission, this study evaluates the benefits of polarimetric S-band SAR for forest characterisation. The Michigan Microwave Canopy Scattering (MIMICS-I radiative transfer model is utilised to understand the scattering mechanisms in forest canopies at S-band. The MIMICS-I model reveals strong S-band backscatter sensitivity to the forest canopy in comparison to soil characteristics across all polarisations and incidence angles. Airborne S-band SAR imagery over the temperate mixed forest of Savernake Forest in southern England is analysed for its information content. Based on the modelling results, S-band HH- and VV-polarisation radar backscatter and the Radar Forest Degradation Index (RFDI are used in a forest/non-forest Maximum Likelihood classification at a spatial resolution of 6 m (70% overall accuracy, κ = 0.41 and 20 m (63% overall accuracy, κ = 0.27. The conclusion is that S-band SAR such as from NovaSAR-S is likely to be suitable for monitoring forest cover and its changes.

Preliminary Analysis of X-Band and Ka-Band Radar for Use in the Detection of Icing Conditions Aloft

Science.gov (United States)

Reehorst, Andrew L.; Koenig, George G.

2004-01-01

NASA and the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) have an on-going activity to develop remote sensing technologies for the detection and measurement of icing conditions aloft. Radar has been identified as a strong tool for this work. However, since the remote detection of icing conditions with the intent to identify areas of icing hazard is a new and evolving capability, there are no set requirements for radar sensitivity. This work is an initial attempt to quantify, through analysis, the sensitivity requirements for an icing remote sensing radar. The primary radar of interest for cloud measurements is Ka-band, however, since NASA is currently using an X-band unit, this frequency is also examined. Several aspects of radar signal analysis were examined. Cloud reflectivity was calculated for several forms of cloud using two different techniques. The Air Force Geophysical Laboratory (AFGL) cloud models, with different drop spectra represented by a modified gamma distribution, were utilized to examine several categories of cloud formation. Also a fundamental methods approach was used to allow manipulation of the cloud droplet size spectra. And an analytical icing radar simulator was developed to examine the complete radar system response to a configurable multi-layer cloud environment. Also discussed is the NASA vertical pointing X-band radar. The radar and its data system are described, and several summer weather events are reviewed.

Polarimetric Edge Detector Based on the Complex Wishart Distribution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning; Schou, Jesper; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg

2001-01-01

polarimetric edge detector provides a constant false alarm rate and it utilizes the full polarimetric information. The edge detector has been applied to polarimetric SAR data from the Danish dual-frequency, airborne polarimetric SAR, EMISAR. The results show clearly an improved edge detection performance...

Polarimetric Signatures from a Crop Covered Land Surface Measured by an L-band Polarimetric Radiometer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søbjærg, Sten Schmidl; Skou, Niels

2003-01-01

This paper describes preliminary results from field measurements of polarimetric azimuth signatures with the EMIRAD L-band polarimetric radiometer, performed over a land test site at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Avignon, France. Scans of 180 degrees in azimuth were carried...

Classification of Polarimetric SAR Data Using Dictionary Learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestergaard, Jacob Schack; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Dahl, Anders Lindbjerg

2012-01-01

This contribution deals with classification of multilook fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data by learning a dictionary of crop types present in the Foulum test site. The Foulum test site contains a large number of agricultural fields, as well as lakes, forests, natural vegetation......, grasslands and urban areas, which make it ideally suited for evaluation of classification algorithms. Dictionary learning centers around building a collection of image patches typical for the classification problem at hand. This requires initial manual labeling of the classes present in the data and is thus...... a method for supervised classification. Sparse coding of these image patches aims to maintain a proficient number of typical patches and associated labels. Data is consecutively classified by a nearest neighbor search of the dictionary elements and labeled with probabilities of each class. Each dictionary...

The lidar dark band: An oddity of the radar bright band analogy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sassen, K. [Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)

1996-04-01

Although much has sbeen learned from independent radar and lidar studies of atmospheric precipitations, occasionally supported by aircraft profiling, what has been lacking is combined optical, microwave, and insitu observations of the melting layer. Fortunately, the rainshowers on April 21, 1994, during the Remote Cloud Sensing intensive obervations Period (RCSIOP) at the Southern Great Plains Cloud and radiation Testbed (CART) site provided an opportunity for coordinated dual-wavelength University of Utah Polarization Diversity Lidar, University of Massachusetts Cloud Profiling Radar System Doppler Radar, and the University of North Dakota Citation aircraft measurements.

Value of a dual-polarized gap-filling radar in support of southern California post-fire debris-flow warnings

Science.gov (United States)

Jorgensen, David P.; Hanshaw, Maiana N.; Schmidt, Kevin M.; Laber, Jayme L; Staley, Dennis M.; Kean, Jason W.; Restrepo, Pedro J.

2011-01-01

A portable truck-mounted C-band Doppler weather radar was deployed to observe rainfall over the Station Fire burn area near Los Angeles, California, during the winter of 2009/10 to assist with debris-flow warning decisions. The deployments were a component of a joint NOAA–U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research effort to improve definition of the rainfall conditions that trigger debris flows from steep topography within recent wildfire burn areas. A procedure was implemented to blend various dual-polarized estimators of precipitation (for radar observations taken below the freezing level) using threshold values for differential reflectivity and specific differential phase shift that improves the accuracy of the rainfall estimates over a specific burn area sited with terrestrial tipping-bucket rain gauges. The portable radar outperformed local Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) National Weather Service network radars in detecting rainfall capable of initiating post-fire runoff-generated debris flows. The network radars underestimated hourly precipitation totals by about 50%. Consistent with intensity–duration threshold curves determined from past debris-flow events in burned areas in Southern California, the portable radar-derived rainfall rates exceeded the empirical thresholds over a wider range of storm durations with a higher spatial resolution than local National Weather Service operational radars. Moreover, the truck-mounted C-band radar dual-polarimetric-derived estimates of rainfall intensity provided a better guide to the expected severity of debris-flow events, based on criteria derived from previous events using rain gauge data, than traditional radar-derived rainfall approaches using reflectivity–rainfall relationships for either the portable or operational network WSR-88D radars. Part of the reason for the improvement was due to siting the radar closer to the burn zone than the WSR-88Ds, but use of the dual-polarimetric variables

Evaluation of Passive Multilayer Cloud Detection Using Preliminary CloudSat and CALIPSO Cloud Profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Minnis, P.; Sun-Mack, S.; Chang, F.; Huang, J.; Nguyen, L.; Ayers, J. K.; Spangenberg, D. A.; Yi, Y.; Trepte, C. R.

2006-12-01

During the last few years, several algorithms have been developed to detect and retrieve multilayered clouds using passive satellite data. Assessing these techniques has been difficult due to the need for active sensors such as cloud radars and lidars that can "see" through different layers of clouds. Such sensors have been available only at a few surface sites and on aircraft during field programs. With the launch of the CALIPSO and CloudSat satellites on April 28, 2006, it is now possible to observe multilayered systems all over the globe using collocated cloud radar and lidar data. As part of the A- Train, these new active sensors are also matched in time ad space with passive measurements from the Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - EOS (AMSR-E). The Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) has been developing and testing algorithms to detect ice-over-water overlapping cloud systems and to retrieve the cloud liquid path (LWP) and ice water path (IWP) for those systems. One technique uses a combination of the CERES cloud retrieval algorithm applied to MODIS data and a microwave retrieval method applied to AMSR-E data. The combination of a CO2-slicing cloud retireval technique with the CERES algorithms applied to MODIS data (Chang et al., 2005) is used to detect and analyze such overlapped systems that contain thin ice clouds. A third technique uses brightness temperature differences and the CERES algorithms to detect similar overlapped methods. This paper uses preliminary CloudSat and CALIPSO data to begin a global scale assessment of these different methods. The long-term goals are to assess and refine the algorithms to aid the development of an optimal combination of the techniques to better monitor ice 9and liquid water clouds in overlapped conditions.

Change detection in a time series of polarimetric SAR data by an omnibus test statistic and its factorization (Conference Presentation)

Science.gov (United States)

Nielsen, Allan A.; Conradsen, Knut; Skriver, Henning

2016-10-01

Test statistics for comparison of real (as opposed to complex) variance-covariance matrices exist in the statistics literature [1]. In earlier publications we have described a test statistic for the equality of two variance-covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution with an associated p-value [2]. We showed their application to bitemporal change detection and to edge detection [3] in multilook, polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data in the covariance matrix representation [4]. The test statistic and the associated p-value is described in [5] also. In [6] we focussed on the block-diagonal case, we elaborated on some computer implementation issues, and we gave examples on the application to change detection in both full and dual polarization bitemporal, bifrequency, multilook SAR data. In [7] we described an omnibus test statistic Q for the equality of k variance-covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution. We also described a factorization of Q = R2 R3 … Rk where Q and Rj determine if and when a difference occurs. Additionally, we gave p-values for Q and Rj. Finally, we demonstrated the use of Q and Rj and the p-values to change detection in truly multitemporal, full polarization SAR data. Here we illustrate the methods by means of airborne L-band SAR data (EMISAR) [8,9]. The methods may be applied to other polarimetric SAR data also such as data from Sentinel-1, COSMO-SkyMed, TerraSAR-X, ALOS, and RadarSat-2 and also to single-pol data. The account given here closely follows that given our recent IEEE TGRS paper [7]. Selected References [1] Anderson, T. W., An Introduction to Multivariate Statistical Analysis, John Wiley, New York, third ed. (2003). [2] Conradsen, K., Nielsen, A. A., Schou, J., and Skriver, H., "A test statistic in the complex Wishart distribution and its application to change detection in polarimetric SAR data," IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 41(1): 4-19, 2003. [3] Schou, J

Measurement needs guided by synthetic radar scans in high-resolution model output

Science.gov (United States)

Varble, A.; Nesbitt, S. W.; Borque, P.

2017-12-01

Microphysical and dynamical process interactions within deep convective clouds are not well understood, partly because measurement strategies often focus on statistics of cloud state rather than cloud processes. While processes cannot be directly measured, they can be inferred with sufficiently frequent and detailed scanning radar measurements focused on the life cycleof individual cloud regions. This is a primary goal of the 2018-19 DOE ARM Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) and NSF Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations (RELAMPAGO) field campaigns in central Argentina, where orographic deep convective initiation is frequent with some high-impact systems growing into the tallest and largest in the world. An array of fixed and mobile scanning multi-wavelength dual-polarization radars will be coupled with surface observations, sounding systems, multi-wavelength vertical profilers, and aircraft in situ measurements to characterize convective cloud life cycles and their relationship with environmental conditions. While detailed cloud processes are an observational target, the radar scan patterns that are most ideal for observing them are unclear. They depend on the locations and scales of key microphysical and dynamical processes operating within the cloud. High-resolution simulations of clouds, while imperfect, can provide information on these locations and scales that guide radar measurement needs. Radar locations are set in the model domain based on planned experiment locations, and simulatedorographic deep convective initiation and upscale growth are sampled using a number of different scans involving RHIs or PPIs with predefined elevation and azimuthal angles that approximately conform with radar range and beam width specifications. Each full scan pattern is applied to output atsingle model time steps with time step intervals that depend on the length of time

Study on the Classification of GAOFEN-3 Polarimetric SAR Images Using Deep Neural Network

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, J.; Zhang, J.; Zhao, Z.

2018-04-01

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (POLSAR) imaging principle determines that the image quality will be affected by speckle noise. So the recognition accuracy of traditional image classification methods will be reduced by the effect of this interference. Since the date of submission, Deep Convolutional Neural Network impacts on the traditional image processing methods and brings the field of computer vision to a new stage with the advantages of a strong ability to learn deep features and excellent ability to fit large datasets. Based on the basic characteristics of polarimetric SAR images, the paper studied the types of the surface cover by using the method of Deep Learning. We used the fully polarimetric SAR features of different scales to fuse RGB images to the GoogLeNet model based on convolution neural network Iterative training, and then use the trained model to test the classification of data validation.First of all, referring to the optical image, we mark the surface coverage type of GF-3 POLSAR image with 8m resolution, and then collect the samples according to different categories. To meet the GoogLeNet model requirements of 256 × 256 pixel image input and taking into account the lack of full-resolution SAR resolution, the original image should be pre-processed in the process of resampling. In this paper, POLSAR image slice samples of different scales with sampling intervals of 2 m and 1 m to be trained separately and validated by the verification dataset. Among them, the training accuracy of GoogLeNet model trained with resampled 2-m polarimetric SAR image is 94.89 %, and that of the trained SAR image with resampled 1 m is 92.65 %.

The Ability of MM5 to Simulate Ice Clouds: Systematic Comparison between Simulated and Measured Fluxes and Lidar/Radar Profiles at SIRTA Atmospheric Observatory

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chiriaco, M.; Vautard, R.; Chepfer, H.; Haeffelin, M.; Wanherdrick, Y.; Morille, Y.; Protat, A.; Dudhia, J.

2005-03-18

Ice clouds play a major role in the radiative energy budget of the Earth-atmosphere system (Liou 1986). Their radiative effect is governed primarily by the equilibrium between their albedo and greenhouse effects. Both macrophysical and microphysical properties of ice clouds regulate this equilibrium. For quantifying the effect of these clouds onto climate and weather systems, they must be properly characterized in atmospheric models. In this paper we use remote-sensing measurements from the SIRTA ground based atmospheric observatory (Site Instrumental de Recherche par Teledetection Atmospherique, http://sirta.lmd.polytechnique.fr). Lidar and radar observations taken over 18 months are used, in order to gain statistical confidence in the model evaluation. Along this period of time, 62 days are selected for study because they contain parts of ice clouds. We use the ''model to observations'' approach by simulating lidar and radar signals from MM5 outputs. Other more classical variables such as shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes are also used. Four microphysical schemes, among which that proposed by Reisner et al. (1998) with original or modified parameterizations of particle terminal fall velocities (Zurovac-Jevtic and Zhang 2003, Heymsfield and Donner 1990), and the simplified Dudhia (1989) scheme are evaluated in this study.

The 3-D Tropical Convective Cloud Spectrum in AMIE Radar Observations and Global Climate Simulations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schumacher, Courtney [Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences

2015-08-31

During the three years of this grant performance, the PI and her research group have made a number of significant contributions towards determining properties of tropical deep convective clouds and how models depict and respond to the heating associated with tropical convective systems. The PI has also been an active ARM/ASR science team member, including playing a significant role in AMIE and GoAmazon2014/5. She served on the DOE ASR radar science steering committee and was a joint chair of the Mesoscale Convective Organization group under the Cloud Life Cycle working group. This grant has funded a number of graduate students, many of them women, and the PI and her group have presented their DOE-supported work at various universities and national meetings. The PI and her group participated in the AMIE (2011-12) and GoAmazon2014/5 (2014-15) DOE field deployments that occurred in the tropical Indian Ocean and Brazilian Amazon, respectively. AMIE observational results (DePasquale et al. 2014, Feng et al. 2014, Ahmed and Schumacher 2015) focus on the variation and possible importance of Kelvin waves in various phases of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), on the synergy of the different wavelength radars deployed on Addu Atoll, and on the importance of humidity thresholds in the tropics on stratiform rain production. Much of the PIs GoAmazon2014/5 results to date relate to overviews of the observations made during the field campaign (Martin et al. 2015, 2016; Fuentes et al. 2016), but also include the introduction of the descending arm and its link to ozone transport from the mid-troposphere to the surface (Gerken et al. 2016). Vertical motion and mass flux profiles from GoAmazon (Giangrande et al. 2016) also show interesting patterns between seasons and provide targets for model simulations. Results from TWP-ICE (Schumacher et al. 2015), which took place in Darwin, Australia in 2006 show that vertical velocity retrievals from the profilers provide structure to

Polarimetric Segmentation Using Wishart Test Statistic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning; Schou, Jesper; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg

2002-01-01

A newly developed test statistic for equality of two complex covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution and an associated asymptotic probability for the test statistic has been used in a segmentation algorithm. The segmentation algorithm is based on the MUM (merge using moments......) approach, which is a merging algorithm for single channel SAR images. The polarimetric version described in this paper uses the above-mentioned test statistic for merging. The segmentation algorithm has been applied to polarimetric SAR data from the Danish dual-frequency, airborne polarimetric SAR, EMISAR...

Coastal Observations of Weather Features in Senegal during the AMMA SOP-3 Period

Science.gov (United States)

Jenkins, G.; Kucera, P.; Joseph, E.; Fuentes, J.; Gaye, A.; Gerlach, J.; Roux, F.; Viltard, N.; Papazzoni, M.; Protat, A.;

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR-based mapping of volcanic flows: Manam Island, Papua New Guinea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. K. Weissel

2004-01-01

Full Text Available We present new radar-based techniques for efficient identification of surface changes generated by lava and pyroclastic flows, and apply these to the 1996 eruption of Manam Volcano, Papua New Guinea. Polarimetric L- and P-band airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR data, along with a C-band DEM, were acquired over the volcano on 17 November 1996 during a major eruption sequence. The L-band data are analyzed for dominant scattering mechanisms on a per pixel basis using radar target decomposition techniques. A classification method is presented, and when applied to the L-band polarimetry, it readily distinguishes bare surfaces from forest cover over Manam volcano. In particular, the classification scheme identifies a post-1992 lava flow in NE Valley of Manam Island as a mainly bare surface and the underlying 1992 flow units as mainly vegetated surfaces. The Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Network reports allow us to speculate whether the bare surface is a flow dating from October or November in the early part of the late-1996 eruption sequence. This work shows that fully polarimetric SAR is sensitive to scattering mechanism changes caused by volcanic resurfacing processes such as lava and pyroclastic flows. By extension, this technique should also prove useful in mapping debris flows, ash deposits and volcanic landslides associated with major eruptions.

Coupling X-band dual-polarized mini-radars and hydro-meteorological forecast models: the HYDRORAD project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Picciotti

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Hydro-meteorological hazards like convective outbreaks leading to torrential rain and floods are among the most critical environmental issues world-wide. In that context weather radar observations have proven to be very useful in providing information on the spatial distribution of rainfall that can support early warning of floods. However, quantitative precipitation estimation by radar is subjected to many limitations and uncertainties. The use of dual-polarization at high frequency (i.e. X-band has proven particularly useful for mitigating some of the limitation of operational systems, by exploiting the benefit of easiness to transport and deploy and the high spatial and temporal resolution achievable at small antenna sizes. New developments on X-band dual-polarization technology in recent years have received the interest of scientific and operational communities in these systems. New enterprises are focusing on the advancement of cost-efficient mini-radar network technology, based on high-frequency (mainly X-band and low-power weather radar systems for weather monitoring and hydro-meteorological forecasting. Within the above context, the main objective of the HYDRORAD project was the development of an innovative mbox{integrated} decision support tool for weather monitoring and hydro-meteorological applications. The integrated system tool is based on a polarimetric X-band mini-radar network which is the core of the decision support tool, a novel radar products generator and a hydro-meteorological forecast modelling system that ingests mini-radar rainfall products to forecast precipitation and floods. The radar products generator includes algorithms for attenuation correction, hydrometeor classification, a vertical profile reflectivity correction, a new polarimetric rainfall estimators developed for mini-radar observations, and short-term nowcasting of convective cells. The hydro-meteorological modelling system includes the Mesoscale Model 5

Geomorphological mapping of ice-free areas using polarimetric RADARSAT-2 data on Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island, Antarctica

Science.gov (United States)

Schmid, T.; López-Martínez, J.; Guillaso, S.; Serrano, E.; D'Hondt, O.; Koch, M.; Nieto, A.; O'Neill, T.; Mink, S.; Durán, J. J.; Maestro, A.

2017-09-01

Satellite-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been used for characterizing and mapping in two relevant ice-free areas in the South Shetland Islands. The objective has been to identify and characterize land surface covers that mainly include periglacial and glacial landforms, using fully polarimetric SAR C band RADARSAT-2 data, on Fildes Peninsula that forms part of King George Island, and Ardley Island. Polarimetric parameters obtained from the SAR data, a selection of field based training and validation sites and a supervised classification approach, using the support vector machine were chosen to determine the spatial distribution of the different landforms. Eight periglacial and glacial landforms were characterized according to their scattering mechanisms using a set of 48 polarimetric parameters. The mapping of the most representative surface covers included colluvial deposits, stone fields and pavements, patterned ground, glacial till and rock outcrops, lakes and glacier ice. The overall accuracy of the results was estimated at 81%, a significant value when mapping areas that are within isolated regions where access is limited. Periglacial surface covers such as stone fields and pavements occupy 25% and patterned ground over 20% of the ice-free areas. These are results that form the basis for an extensive monitoring of the ice-free areas throughout the northern Antarctic Peninsula region.

Site Scientist for the North Slope of Alaska Site

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Verlinde, Johannes [Pennsylvania State Univ., State College, PA (United States)

2016-03-11

Under this grant our team contributed scientific support to the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Program’s (DOE-ARM) Infrastructure team to maintain high quality research data at the DOE-ARM North Slope of Alaska with special emphasis on the radars. Under our guidance two major field campaigns focusing on mixed-phase Arctic clouds were conducted that greatly increased the community’s understanding of the many processes working together to control the evolution of single-layer cloud mixed-phase clouds. A series of modeling and observational studies revealed that the longevity of the radiatively important liquid phase is strongly dependent on how the ice phase develops in mixed-phase clouds. A new ice microphysics parameterization was developed to capture better the natural evolution of ice particle growth in evolving environments. An ice particle scattering database was developed for all ARM radar frequencies. This database was used in a radar simulator (Doppler spectrum and polarimetric variables) to aid in the interpretation of the advanced ARM radars. At the conclusion of this project our team was poised to develop a complete radar simulator consistent with the new microphysical parameterization, taking advantage of parameterization’s advanced characterization of the ice shape and ice density.

PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF ESTIMATING SOIL MOISTURE OVER BARE SOIL USING FULL-POLARIMETRIC ALOS-2 DATA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Sekertekin

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR imaging system is one of the most effective way for Earth observation. The aim of this study is to present the preliminary results about estimating soil moisture using L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR data. Full-polarimetric (HH, HV, VV, VH ALOS-2 data, acquired on 22.04.2016 with the incidence angle of 30.4o, were used in the study. Simultaneously with the SAR acquisition, in-situ soil moisture samples over bare agricultural lands were collected and evaluated using gravimetric method. Backscattering coefficients for all polarizations were obtained and linear regression analysis was carried out with in situ moisture measurements. The best correlation coefficient was observed with VV polarization. Cross-polarized backscattering coefficients were not so sensitive to soil moisture content. In the study, it was observed that soil moisture maps can be retrieved with the accuracy about 14% (RMSE.

Classification and Monitoring of Reed Belts Using Dual-Polarimetric TerraSAR-X Time Series

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iris Heine

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Synthetic aperture radar polarimetry (PolSAR and polarimetric decomposition techniques have proven to be useful tools for wetland mapping. In this study we classify reed belts and monitor their phenological changes at a natural lake in northeastern Germany using dual-co-polarized (HH, VV TerraSAR-X time series. The time series comprises 19 images, acquired between August 2014 and May 2015, in ascending and descending orbit. We calculated different polarimetric indices using the HH and VV intensities, the dual-polarimetric coherency matrix including dominant and mean alpha scattering angles, and entropy and anisotropy (normalized eigenvalue difference as well as combinations of entropy and anisotropy for the analysis of the scattering scenarios. The image classifications were performed with the random forest classifier and validated with high-resolution digital orthophotos. The time series analysis of the reed belts revealed significant seasonal changes for the double-bounce–sensitive parameters (intensity ratio HH/VV and intensity difference HH-VV, the co-polarimetric coherence phase and the dominant and mean alpha scattering angles and in the dual-polarimetric coherence (amplitude, anisotropy, entropy, and anisotropy-entropy combinations; whereas in summer dense leaves cause volume scattering, in winter, after leaves have fallen, the reed stems cause predominately double-bounce scattering. Our study showed that the five most important parameters for the classification of reed are the intensity difference HH-VV, the mean alpha scattering angle, intensity ratio HH/VV, and the coherence (phase. Due to the better separation of reed and other vegetation (deciduous forest, coniferous forest, meadow, winter acquisitions are preferred for the mapping of reed. Multi-temporal stacks of winter images performed better than summer ones. The combination of ascending and descending images also improved the result as it reduces the influence of the sensor

Multiple-scattering in radar systems: A review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Battaglia, Alessandro; Tanelli, Simone; Kobayashi, Satoru; Zrnic, Dusan; Hogan, Robin J.; Simmer, Clemens

2010-01-01

Although extensively studied within the lidar community, the multiple scattering phenomenon has always been considered a rare curiosity by radar meteorologists. Up to few years ago its appearance has only been associated with two- or three-body-scattering features (e.g. hail flares and mirror images) involving highly reflective surfaces. Recent atmospheric research aimed at better understanding of the water cycle and the role played by clouds and precipitation in affecting the Earth's climate has driven the deployment of high frequency radars in space. Examples are the TRMM 13.5 GHz, the CloudSat 94 GHz, the upcoming EarthCARE 94 GHz, and the GPM dual 13-35 GHz radars. These systems are able to detect the vertical distribution of hydrometeors and thus provide crucial feedbacks for radiation and climate studies. The shift towards higher frequencies increases the sensitivity to hydrometeors, improves the spatial resolution and reduces the size and weight of the radar systems. On the other hand, higher frequency radars are affected by stronger extinction, especially in the presence of large precipitating particles (e.g. raindrops or hail particles), which may eventually drive the signal below the minimum detection threshold. In such circumstances the interpretation of the radar equation via the single scattering approximation may be problematic. Errors will be large when the radiation emitted from the radar after interacting more than once with the medium still contributes substantially to the received power. This is the case if the transport mean-free-path becomes comparable with the instrument footprint (determined by the antenna beam-width and the platform altitude). This situation resembles to what has already been experienced in lidar observations, but with a predominance of wide- versus small-angle scattering events. At millimeter wavelengths, hydrometeors diffuse radiation rather isotropically compared to the visible or near infrared region where scattering is

Comparison of CloudSat and TRMM radar reflectivities

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Tropical deep convective clouds drive the large scale circulation of ... information concerning tropical clouds since 1998 ..... and CloudSat Data Processing Center, NASA for providing .... ical precipitating clouds ranging from shallow to deep.

Detection of Ground Clutter from Weather Radar Using a Dual-Polarization and Dual-Scan Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad-Hossein Golbon-Haghighi

2016-06-01

Full Text Available A novel dual-polarization and dual-scan (DPDS classification algorithm is developed for clutter detection in weather radar observations. Two consecutive scans of dual-polarization radar echoes are jointly processed to estimate auto- and cross-correlation functions. Discriminants are then defined and estimated in order to separate clutter from weather based on their physical and statistical properties. An optimal Bayesian classifier is used to make a decision on clutter presence from the estimated discriminant functions. The DPDS algorithm is applied to the data collected with the KOUN polarimetric radar and compared with the existing detection methods. It is shown that the DPDS algorithm yields a higher probability of detection and lower false alarm rate in clutter detection.

A fiber-optic polarimetric demonstration kit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eftimov, T; Dimitrova, T L; Ivanov, G

2012-01-01

A simple and multifunctional fiber-optic polarimetric kit on the basis of highly birefringent single-mode fibers is presented. The fiber-optic polarimetric kit allows us to perform the following laboratory exercises: (i) fiber excitation and the measurement of numerical aperture, (ii) polarization preservation and (iii) obtain polarization-sensitive fiberized interferometers.

Polarimetric signatures indicative of severe storm development - the Pentecost event 2014

Science.gov (United States)

Troemel, Silke; Diederich, Malte; Evaristo, Raquel; Ryzhkov, Alexander; Simmer, Clemens

2015-04-01

The 2014 Pentecost weekend storms in Europe were a series of severe supercell storms which followed a heatwave in early June 2014, resulting from a Spanish plume synoptic weather pattern. Outbreaks of severe weather were reported from these storm developments with the worst damages occurring over the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on 9 June, where the storm was described as one of the most violent in decades by the German weather service (DWD). During this event six fatalities, wind gusts up to 150km/h, hail and a flash flood in Düsseldorf has been reported. Monitoring and analysis of high-impact weather using weather radars of shorter wavelength (X- and C-bands) requires special methods, i.e. anomalous high attenuation and differential attenuation due to very large raindrops originating from melting large hail has to be investigated and corrected. During the Pentecost event a record breaking ZDR bias of up to -25dB has been observed. Different strategies for reliable attenuation correction and rainfall estimation for this extreme event are explored and will be presented. A national 3D composite of polarimetric moments covering Germany with 1km horizontal, 250m vertical, and 5 minutes temporal resolution has been generated. 10 C-band radars from the DWD radar network, recently upgraded to polarimetry, have been included. Meanie3D, a 3D scale space tracking algorithm, is applied to the composite to investigate the magnitudes and temporal development of the 3 fundamental steps of a storms lifecycle: 1) high values of differential reflectivity ZDR aloft first indicate a developing cell, 2) ZDR-columns (these are vertical columns of high differential reflectivity) then indicate the updraft zone of a cell in the mature state. The vertical extent of the ZDR-column is thus a measure of the strength of the updraft and for the ensuing rainfall enhancement. 3) The very first big drops reach the surface before the most intense rain begins. This is reflected by the

On the potential of long wavelength imaging radars for mapping vegetation types and woody biomass in tropical rain forests

Science.gov (United States)

Rignot, Eric J.; Zimmermann, Reiner; Oren, Ram

1995-01-01

In the tropical rain forests of Manu, in Peru, where forest biomass ranges from 4 kg/sq m in young forest succession up to 100 kg/sq m in old, undisturbed floodplain stands, the P-band polarimetric radar data gathered in June of 1993 by the AIRSAR (Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar) instrument separate most major vegetation formations and also perform better than expected in estimating woody biomass. The worldwide need for large scale, updated biomass estimates, achieved with a uniformly applied method, as well as reliable maps of land cover, justifies a more in-depth exploration of long wavelength imaging radar applications for tropical forests inventories.

On the Use of Generalized Volume Scattering Models for the Improvement of General Polarimetric Model-Based Decomposition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qinghua Xie

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Recently, a general polarimetric model-based decomposition framework was proposed by Chen et al., which addresses several well-known limitations in previous decomposition methods and implements a simultaneous full-parameter inversion by using complete polarimetric information. However, it only employs four typical models to characterize the volume scattering component, which limits the parameter inversion performance. To overcome this issue, this paper presents two general polarimetric model-based decomposition methods by incorporating the generalized volume scattering model (GVSM or simplified adaptive volume scattering model, (SAVSM proposed by Antropov et al. and Huang et al., respectively, into the general decomposition framework proposed by Chen et al. By doing so, the final volume coherency matrix structure is selected from a wide range of volume scattering models within a continuous interval according to the data itself without adding unknowns. Moreover, the new approaches rely on one nonlinear optimization stage instead of four as in the previous method proposed by Chen et al. In addition, the parameter inversion procedure adopts the modified algorithm proposed by Xie et al. which leads to higher accuracy and more physically reliable output parameters. A number of Monte Carlo simulations of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR data are carried out and show that the proposed method with GVSM yields an overall improvement in the final accuracy of estimated parameters and outperforms both the version using SAVSM and the original approach. In addition, C-band Radarsat-2 and L-band AIRSAR fully polarimetric images over the San Francisco region are also used for testing purposes. A detailed comparison and analysis of decomposition results over different land-cover types are conducted. According to this study, the use of general decomposition models leads to a more accurate quantitative retrieval of target parameters. However, there

A Ground-Based Doppler Radar and Micropulse Lidar Forward Simulator for GCM Evaluation of Arctic Mixed-Phase Clouds: Moving Forward Towards an Apples-to-apples Comparison of Hydrometeor Phase

Science.gov (United States)

Lamer, K.; Fridlind, A. M.; Ackerman, A. S.; Kollias, P.; Clothiaux, E. E.

2017-12-01

An important aspect of evaluating Artic cloud representation in a general circulation model (GCM) consists of using observational benchmarks which are as equivalent as possible to model output in order to avoid methodological bias and focus on correctly diagnosing model dynamical and microphysical misrepresentations. However, current cloud observing systems are known to suffer from biases such as limited sensitivity, and stronger response to large or small hydrometeors. Fortunately, while these observational biases cannot be corrected, they are often well understood and can be reproduced in forward simulations. Here a ground-based millimeter wavelength Doppler radar and micropulse lidar forward simulator able to interface with output from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) ModelE GCM is presented. ModelE stratiform hydrometeor fraction, mixing ratio, mass-weighted fall speed and effective radius are forward simulated to vertically-resolved profiles of radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity and spectrum width as well as lidar backscatter and depolarization ratio. These forward simulated fields are then compared to Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) North Slope of Alaska (NSA) ground-based observations to assess cloud vertical structure (CVS). Model evalution of Arctic mixed-phase cloud would also benefit from hydrometeor phase evaluation. While phase retrieval from synergetic observations often generates large uncertainties, the same retrieval algorithm can be applied to observed and forward-simulated radar-lidar fields, thereby producing retrieved hydrometeor properties with potentially the same uncertainties. Comparing hydrometeor properties retrieved in exactly the same way aims to produce the best apples-to-apples comparisons between GCM ouputs and observations. The use of a comprenhensive ground-based forward simulator coupled with a hydrometeor classification retrieval algorithm provides a new perspective for GCM evaluation of Arctic mixed

Estimation of Snow Parameters from Dual-Wavelength Airborne Radar

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Liang; Meneghini, Robert; Iguchi, Toshio; Detwiler, Andrew

1997-01-01

Estimation of snow characteristics from airborne radar measurements would complement In-situ measurements. While In-situ data provide more detailed information than radar, they are limited in their space-time sampling. In the absence of significant cloud water contents, dual-wavelength radar data can be used to estimate 2 parameters of a drop size distribution if the snow density is assumed. To estimate, rather than assume, a snow density is difficult, however, and represents a major limitation in the radar retrieval. There are a number of ways that this problem can be investigated: direct comparisons with in-situ measurements, examination of the large scale characteristics of the retrievals and their comparison to cloud model outputs, use of LDR measurements, and comparisons to the theoretical results of Passarelli(1978) and others. In this paper we address the first approach and, in part, the second.

Rain/snow radar remote sensing with two X-band radars operating over an altitude gradient in the French Alps

Science.gov (United States)

Delrieu, Guy; Cazenave, Frédéric; Yu, Nan; Boudevillain, Brice; Faure, Dominique; Gaussiat, Nicolas

2017-04-01

Operating weather radars in high-mountain regions faces the following well-known dilemma: (1) installing radar on top of mountains allows for the detection of severe summer convective events over 360° but may give poor QPE performance during a very significant part of the year when the 0°C isotherm is located below or close to the radar altitude; (2) installing radar at lower altitudes may lead to better QPE over sensitive areas such as cities located in valleys, but at the cost of reduced visibility and detection capability in other geographical sectors. We have the opportunity to study this question in detail in the region of Grenoble (an Alpine city of 500 000 inhabitants with an average altitude of 210 m asl) with a pair of X-band polarimetric weather radars operated respectively by Meteo-France on top of Mount Moucherotte (1920 m asl) and by IGE on the Grenoble Campus (213 m asl). The XPORT radar (IGE) performs a combination of PPIs at elevations of 3.5, 7.5, 15 and 25° complemented by two RHIs in the vertical plane passing by the two radar sites, in order to document the 4D precipitation variability within the Grenoble intermountain valley. In the proposed communication, preliminary results of this experiment (started in September 2016) will be presented with highlights on (1) the calibration of the two radar systems, (2) the characterization of the melting layer during significant precipitation events (>5mm/day) occurring in autumn, winter and spring; (3) the simulation of the relative effects of attenuation and non-uniform beam filling at X-band and (4) the possibility to use the mountain returns for quantifying the attenuation by the rain and the melting layer.

GPM GROUND VALIDATION PAWNEE RADAR MC3E V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Pawnee radar data for the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) held in Oklahoma were collected on May 24, 2011 to support the CHILL radar...

A case study of gravity waves in noctilucent clouds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. Dalin

2004-06-01

Full Text Available We present a case study of a noctilucent cloud (NLC display appearing on 10-11 August 2000 over Northern Sweden. Clear wave structures were visible in the clouds and time-lapse photography was used to derive the parameters characterising the gravity waves which could account for the observed NLC modulation. Using two nearby atmospheric radars, the Esrange MST Radar data and Andoya MF radar, we have identified gravity waves propagating upward from the upper stratosphere to NLC altitudes. The wave parameters derived from the radar measurements support the suggestion that gravity waves are responsible for the observed complex wave dynamics in the NLC.

Weather radar performance monitoring using a metallic-grid ground-scatterer

Science.gov (United States)

Falconi, Marta Tecla; Montopoli, Mario; Marzano, Frank Silvio; Baldini, Luca

2017-10-01

The use of ground return signals is investigated for checks on the calibration of power measurements of a polarimetric C-band radar. To this aim, a peculiar permanent single scatterer (PSS) consisting of a big metallic roof with a periodic mesh grid structure and having a hemisphere-like shape is considered. The latter is positioned in the near-field region of the weather radar and its use, as a reference calibrator, shows fairly good results in terms of reflectivity and differential reflectivity monitoring. In addition, the use of PSS indirectly allows to check for the radar antenna de-pointing which is another issue usually underestimated when dealing with weather radars. Because of the periodic structure of the considered PSS, simulations of its electromagnetic behavior were relatively easy to perform. To this goal, we used an electromagnetic Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) with an ad-hoc numerical implementation of a full-wave solution to model our PSS in terms of reflectivity and differential reflectivity factor. Comparison of model results and experimental measurements are then shown in this work. Our preliminary investigation can pave the way for future studies aiming at characterizing ground-clutter returns in a more accurate way for radar calibration purposes.

Enhance the accuracy of radar snowfall estimation with Multi new Z-S relationships in MRMS system

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Y.

2017-12-01

Snow may have negative affects on roadways and human lives, but the result of the melted snow/ice is good for farm, humans, and animals. For example, in the Southwest and West mountainous area of United States, water shortage is a very big concern. However, snowfall in the winter can provide humans, animals and crops an almost unlimited water supply. So, using radar to accurately estimate the snowfall is very important for human life and economic development in the water lacking area. The current study plans to analyze the characteristics of the horizontal and vertical variations of dry/wet snow using dual polarimetric radar observations, relative humidity and in situ snow water equivalent observations from the National Weather Service All Weather Prediction Accumulation Gauges (AWPAG) across the CONUS, and establish the relationships between the reflectivity (Z) and ground snow water equivalent (S). The new Z-S relationships will be evaluated with independent CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network) gauge observations and eventually implemented in the Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor system for improved quantitative precipitation estimation for snow. This study will analyze the characteristics of the horizontal and vertical variations of dry/wet snow using dual polarimetric radar observations, relative humidity and in situ snow water equivalent observations from the National Weather Service All Weather Prediction Accumulation Gauges (AWPAG) across the CONUS, and establish the relationships between the reflectivity (Z) and ground snow water equivalent (S). The new Z-S relationships will be used to reduce the error of snowfall estimation in Multi Radar and Multi Sensors (MRMS) system, and tested in MRMS system and evaluated with the COCORaHS observations. Finally, it will be ingested in MRMS sytem, and running in NWS/NCAR operationally

Characterization of Cloud Water-Content Distribution

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Seungwon

2010-01-01

The development of realistic cloud parameterizations for climate models requires accurate characterizations of subgrid distributions of thermodynamic variables. To this end, a software tool was developed to characterize cloud water-content distributions in climate-model sub-grid scales. This software characterizes distributions of cloud water content with respect to cloud phase, cloud type, precipitation occurrence, and geo-location using CloudSat radar measurements. It uses a statistical method called maximum likelihood estimation to estimate the probability density function of the cloud water content.

Multifractal analysis of radar rainfall fields over the area of Rome

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Calenda

2005-01-01

Full Text Available A scale-invariance analysis of space and time rainfall events monitored by meteorological radar over the area of Rome (Italy is proposed. The study of the scale-invariance properties of intense precipitation storms, particularly important in flood forecast and risk mitigation, allows to transfer rainfall information from the large scale predictive meteorological models to the small scale hydrological rainfall-runoff models. Precipitation events are monitored using data collected by the polarimetric Doppler radar Polar 55C (ISAC-CNR, located 15 km Southeast from downtown. The meteorological radar provides the estimates of rainfall intensity over an area of about 10 000 km2 at a resolution of 2×2 km2 in space and 5 min in time. Many precipitation events have been observed from autumn 2001 up to now. A scale-invariance analysis is performed on some of these events with the aim at exploring the multifractal properties and at understanding their dependence on the meteorological large-scale conditions.

Passive Polarimetric Information Processing for Target Classification

Science.gov (United States)

Sadjadi, Firooz; Sadjadi, Farzad

Polarimetric sensing is an area of active research in a variety of applications. In particular, the use of polarization diversity has been shown to improve performance in automatic target detection and recognition. Within the diverse scope of polarimetric sensing, the field of passive polarimetric sensing is of particular interest. This chapter presents several new methods for gathering in formation using such passive techniques. One method extracts three-dimensional (3D) information and surface properties using one or more sensors. Another method extracts scene-specific algebraic expressions that remain unchanged under polariza tion transformations (such as along the transmission path to the sensor).

Utilizing Four Dimensional Lightning and Dual-Polarization Radar to Develop Lightning Initiation Forecast Guidance

Science.gov (United States)

2015-03-26

vapor condensing on cloud condensation nuclei. The updraft speed increases with height inside the cloud and en- trainment occurs as air outside the...2012–30 January 2013 due to a KMLB radar outage caused by construction of a taller radar tower needed to avoid beam blockage by new aircraft hangers

DYNAMICS OF DUST PARTICLES RELEASED FROM OORT CLOUD COMETS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO RADAR METEORS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nesvorný, David; Vokrouhlický, David; Pokorný, Petr; Janches, Diego

2011-01-01

The Oort Cloud Comets (OCCs), exemplified by the Great Comet of 1997 (Hale-Bopp), are occasional visitors from the heatless periphery of the solar system. Previous works hypothesized that a great majority of OCCs must physically disrupt after one or two passages through the inner solar system, where strong thermal gradients can cause phase transitions or volatile pressure buildup. Here we study the fate of small debris particles produced by OCC disruptions to determine whether the imprints of a hypothetical population of OCC meteoroids can be found in the existing meteor radar data. We find that OCC particles with diameters D ∼ 1 mm have a very low Earth-impact probability. The intermediate particle sizes, D ∼ 100 μm, represent a sweet spot. About 1% of these particles orbitally evolve by Poynting-Robertson drag to reach orbits with semimajor axis a ∼ 1 AU. They are expected to produce meteors with radiants near the apex of Earth's orbital motion. We find that the model distributions of their impact speeds and orbits provide a good match to radar observations of apex meteors, except for the eccentricity distribution, which is more skewed toward e ∼ 1 in our model. Finally, we propose an explanation for the long-standing problem in meteor science related to the relative strength of apex and helion/antihelion sources. As we show in detail, the observed trend, with the apex meteors being more prominent in observations of highly sensitive radars, can be related to orbital dynamics of particles released on the long-period orbits.

Comparison of Cloud Properties from CALIPSO-CloudSat and Geostationary Satellite Data

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, L.; Minnis, P.; Chang, F.; Winker, D.; Sun-Mack, S.; Spangenberg, D.; Austin, R.

2007-01-01

Cloud properties are being derived in near-real time from geostationary satellite imager data for a variety of weather and climate applications and research. Assessment of the uncertainties in each of the derived cloud parameters is essential for confident use of the products. Determination of cloud amount, cloud top height, and cloud layering is especially important for using these real -time products for applications such as aircraft icing condition diagnosis and numerical weather prediction model assimilation. Furthermore, the distribution of clouds as a function of altitude has become a central component of efforts to evaluate climate model cloud simulations. Validation of those parameters has been difficult except over limited areas where ground-based active sensors, such as cloud radars or lidars, have been available on a regular basis. Retrievals of cloud properties are sensitive to the surface background, time of day, and the clouds themselves. Thus, it is essential to assess the geostationary satellite retrievals over a variety of locations. The availability of cloud radar data from CloudSat and lidar data from CALIPSO make it possible to perform those assessments over each geostationary domain at 0130 and 1330 LT. In this paper, CloudSat and CALIPSO data are matched with contemporaneous Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT), and Meteosat-8 data. Unlike comparisons with cloud products derived from A-Train imagers, this study considers comparisons of nadir active sensor data with off-nadir retrievals. These matched data are used to determine the uncertainties in cloud-top heights and cloud amounts derived from the geostationary satellite data using the Clouds and the Earth s Radiant Energy System (CERES) cloud retrieval algorithms. The CERES multi-layer cloud detection method is also evaluated to determine its accuracy and limitations in the off-nadir mode. The results will be useful for

The CASLEO Polarimetric Survey of Main Belt Asteroids: Updated results

Science.gov (United States)

Gil-Hutton, R.; Cellino, A.; Cañada-Assandri, M.

2011-10-01

We present updated results of the polarimetric survey of main-belt asteroids at Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito (Casleo), San Juan, Argentina, using the 2.15 m telescope and the Torino and CASPROF polarimeters. The goals of this survey are to increase the database of asteroid polarimetry, to estimate diversity in polarimetric properties of asteroids belonging to different taxonomic classes, and to search for objects that exhibit anomalous polarimetric properties. The survey began in 2003, and data for a sample of more than 170 asteroids have been obtained, most of them having been polarimetrically observed for the first time. Using these data we find phase-polarization curves and polarimetric parameters for several taxonomic classes.

An Empirical Assessment of Temporal Decorrelation Using the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar over Forested Landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michelle Hofton

2012-04-01

Full Text Available We present an empirical assessment of the impact of temporal decorrelation on interferometric coherence measured over a forested landscape. A series of repeat-pass interferometric radar images with a zero spatial baseline were collected with UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, a fully polarimetric airborne L-band radar system. The dataset provided temporal separations of 45 minutes, 2, 7 and 9 days. Coincident airborne lidar and weather data were collected. We theoretically demonstrate that UAVSAR measurement accuracy enables accurate quantification of temporal decorrelation. Data analysis revealed precipitation events to be the main driver of temporal decorrelation over the acquisition period. The experiment also shows temporal decorrelation increases with canopy height, and this pattern was found consistent across forest types and polarization.

EMISAR: A Dual-frequency, Polarimetric Airborne SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall, Jørgen; Christensen, Erik Lintz

2002-01-01

EMISAR is a fully polarimetric, dual frequency (L- and C-band) SAR system designed for remote sensing applications. The data are usually processed to 2×2 m resolution. The system has the capability of C-band cross-track single-pass interferometry and fully polarimetric repeat-pass interferometry....

Exploration of factors limiting biomass estimation by polarimetric radar in tropical forests

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Quiñones Fernández, M.J.; Hoekman, D.H.

2004-01-01

Direct inversion of radar return signals for forest biomass estimation is limited by signal saturation at medium biomass levels (roughly 150 ton/ha for P-band). Disturbing factors such as forest structural differences-and, notably, at low biomass levels, terrain roughness, and soil moisture

Quality assessment of water cycle parameters in REMO by radar-lidar synergy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Hennemuth

2008-01-01

Full Text Available A comparison study of water cycle parameters derived from ground-based remote-sensing instruments and from the regional model REMO is presented. Observational data sets were collected during three measuring campaigns in summer/autumn 2003 and 2004 at Richard Aßmann Observatory, Lindenberg, Germany. The remote sensing instruments which were used are differential absorption lidar, Doppler lidar, ceilometer, cloud radar, and micro rain radar for the derivation of humidity profiles, ABL height, water vapour flux profiles, cloud parameters, and rain rate. Additionally, surface latent and sensible heat flux and soil moisture were measured. Error ranges and representativity of the data are discussed. For comparisons the regional model REMO was run for all measuring periods with a horizontal resolution of 18 km and 33 vertical levels. Parameter output was every hour. The measured data were transformed to the vertical model grid and averaged in time in order to better match with gridbox model values. The comparisons show that the atmospheric boundary layer is not adequately simulated, on most days it is too shallow and too moist. This is found to be caused by a wrong partitioning of energy at the surface, particularly a too large latent heat flux. The reason is obviously an overestimation of soil moisture during drying periods by the one-layer scheme in the model. The profiles of water vapour transport within the ABL appear to be realistically simulated. The comparison of cloud cover reveals an underestimation of low-level and mid-level clouds by the model, whereas the comparison of high-level clouds is hampered by the inability of the cloud radar to see cirrus clouds above 10 km. Simulated ABL clouds apparently have a too low cloud base, and the vertical extent is underestimated. The ice water content of clouds agree in model and observation whereas the liquid water content is unsufficiently derived from cloud radar reflectivity in the present study

Assessment of tissue polarimetric properties using Stokes polarimetric imaging with circularly polarized illumination.

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Ji; He, Honghui; Lin, Jianyu; Dong, Yang; Chen, Dongsheng; Ma, Hui; Elson, Daniel S

2018-04-01

Tissue-depolarization and linear-retardance are the main polarization characteristics of interest for bulk tissue characterization, and are normally interpreted from Mueller polarimetry. Stokes polarimetry can be conducted using simpler instrumentation and in a shorter time. Here, we use Stokes polarimetric imaging with circularly polarized illumination to assess the circular-depolarization and linear-retardance properties of tissue. Results obtained were compared with Mueller polarimetry in transmission and reflection geometry, respectively. It is found that circular-depolarization obtained from these 2 methods is very similar in both geometries, and that linear-retardance is highly quantitatively similar for transmission geometry and qualitatively similar for reflection geometry. The majority of tissue circular-depolarization and linear-retardance image information (represented by local image contrast features) obtained from Mueller polarimetry is well preserved from Stokes polarimetry in both geometries. These findings can be referred to for further understanding tissue Stokes polarimetric data, and for further application of Stokes polarimetry under the circumstances where short acquisition time or low optical system complexity is a priority, such as polarimetric endoscopy and microscopy. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

The Role of Cloud and Precipitation Radars in Convoys and Constellations

Science.gov (United States)

Tanelli, Simone; Durden, Stephen L.; Im, Eastwood; Sadowy, Gregory A.

2013-01-01

We provide an overview of which benefits a radar, and only a radar, can provide to any constellation of satellites monitoring Earth's atmosphere; which aspects instead are most useful to complement a radar instrument to provide accurate and complete description of the state of the troposphere; and finally which goals can be given a lower priority assuming that other types of sensors will be flying in formation with a radar.

POLARIMETRIC SIGNATURES IDENTIFICATION FOR DIFFERENT FEATURES IN RADARSAT-2 POLSAR IMAGE: A CASE STUDY OF HALAYIB AREA, EGYPT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. H. Nasr

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In fully polarized SAR (PolSAR data the returned signal from a target contains all polarizations. More information about this target may be inferred with respect to single-polarization. Distinct polarization separates targets due to its different backscattering responses. A Radarsat-2 PolSAR image acquired on December 2013 of part of Halayib area (Egypt was used in this study. Polarimetric signatures for various features (Wadi deposits, Tonalite, Chlorite schist, and Radar penetrated areas were derived and identified. Their Co-polarized and Cross-polarized signatures were generated, based on the calculation of the backscattered power at various ellipticity and orientation angles. Graphical 3D-representation of these features was provided and more details of their physical information are depicted according to their different polarization bases. The results illustrate that polarimetric signatures, obtained due to factors like surface roughness, dielectric constant and feature orientation, can be an effective representation for analyzing various features. The shape of the signature is significant and can also indicate the scattering mechanisms dominating the features response.

Development and Validation of a Polarimetric-MCScene 3D Atmospheric Radiation Model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Berk, Alexander [Spectral Sciences, Inc., Burlington, MA (United States); Hawes, Frederick [Spectral Sciences, Inc., Burlington, MA (United States); Fox, Marsha [Spectral Sciences, Inc., Burlington, MA (United States)

2016-03-15

Polarimetric measurements can substantially enhance the ability of both spectrally resolved and single band imagery to detect the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, providing data for locating and identifying facilities, materials, and processes of undeclared and proliferant nuclear weapons programs worldwide. Unfortunately, models do not exist that efficiently and accurately predict spectral polarized signatures for the materials of interest embedded in complex 3D environments. Having such a model would enable one to test hypotheses and optimize both the enhancement of scene contrast and the signal processing for spectral signature extraction. The Phase I set the groundwork for development of fully validated polarimetric spectral signature and scene simulation models. This has been accomplished 1. by (a) identifying and downloading state-of-the-art surface and atmospheric polarimetric data sources, (b) implementing tools for generating custom polarimetric data, and (c) identifying and requesting US Government funded field measurement data for use in validation; 2. by formulating an approach for upgrading the radiometric spectral signature model MODTRAN to generate polarimetric intensities through (a) ingestion of the polarimetric data, (b) polarimetric vectorization of existing MODTRAN modules, and (c) integration of a newly developed algorithm for computing polarimetric multiple scattering contributions; 3. by generating an initial polarimetric model that demonstrates calculation of polarimetric solar and lunar single scatter intensities arising from the interaction of incoming irradiances with molecules and aerosols; 4. by developing a design and implementation plan to (a) automate polarimetric scene construction and (b) efficiently sample polarimetric scattering and reflection events, for use in a to be developed polarimetric version of the existing first-principles synthetic scene simulation model, MCScene; and 5. by planning a validation field

Tropical cloud and precipitation regimes as seen from near-simultaneous TRMM, CloudSat, and CALIPSO observations and comparison with ISCCP

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Zhengzhao Johnny; Anderson, Ricardo C.; Rossow, William B.; Takahashi, Hanii

2017-06-01

Although Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and CloudSat/CALIPSO fly in different orbits, they frequently cross each other so that for the period between 2006 and 2010, a total of 15,986 intersect lines occurred within 20 min of each other from 30°S to 30°N, providing a rare opportunity to study tropical cloud and precipitation regimes and their internal vertical structure from near-simultaneous measurements by these active sensors. A k-means cluster analysis of TRMM and CloudSat matchups identifies three tropical cloud and precipitation regimes: the first two regimes correspond to, respectively, organized deep convection with heavy rain and cirrus anvils with moderate rain; the third regime is a convectively suppressed regime that can be further divided into three subregimes, which correspond to, respectively, stratocumulus clouds with drizzle, cirrus overlying low clouds, and nonprecipitating cumulus. Inclusion of CALIPSO data adds to the dynamic range of cloud properties and identifies one more cluster; subcluster analysis further identifies a thin, midlevel cloud regime associated with tropical mountain ranges. The radar-lidar cloud regimes are compared with the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) weather states (WSs) for the extended tropics. Focus is placed on the four convectively active WSs, namely, WS1-WS4. ISCCP WS1 and WS2 are found to be counterparts of Regime 1 and Regime 2 in radar-lidar observations, respectively. ISCCP WS3 and WS4, which are mainly isolated convection and broken, detached cirrus, do not have a strong association with any individual radar and lidar regimes, a likely effect of the different sampling strategies between ISCCP and active sensors and patchy cloudiness of these WSs.

Evaluation of dual polarization scattering matrix radar rain backscatter measurements in the X- and Q-bands

Science.gov (United States)

Agrawal, A. P.; Carnegie, D. W.; Boerner, W.-M.

This paper presents an evaluation of polarimetric rain backscatter measurements collected with coherent dual polarization radar systems in the X (8.9 GHz) and Q (45GHz) bands, the first being operated in a pulsed mode and the second being a FM-CW system. The polarimetric measurement data consisted for each band of fifty files of time-sequential scattering matrix measurements expressed in terms of a linear (H, V) antenna polarization state basis. The rain backscattering takes place in a rain cell defined by the beam widths and down range distances of 275 ft through 325 ft and the scattering matrices were measured far below the hydrometeoric scattering center decorrelation time so that ensemble averaging of time-sequential scattering matrices may be applied. In the data evaluation great care was taken in determining: (1) polarimetric Doppler velocities associated with the motion of descending oscillating raindrops and/or eddies within the moving swaths of coastal rain showers, and (2) also the properties of the associated co/cross-polarization rain clutter nulls and their distributions on the Poincare polarization sphere.

Effects of ice crystal surface roughness and air bubble inclusions on cirrus cloud radiative properties from remote sensing perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tang, Guanglin; Panetta, R. Lee; Yang, Ping; Kattawar, George W.; Zhai, Peng-Wang

2017-01-01

We study the combined effects of surface roughness and inhomogeneity on the optical scattering properties of ice crystals and explore the consequent implications to remote sensing of cirrus cloud properties. Specifically, surface roughness and inhomogeneity are added to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) collection 6 (MC6) cirrus cloud particle habit model. Light scattering properties of the new habit model are simulated using a modified version of the Improved Geometric Optics Method (IGOM). Both inhomogeneity and surface roughness affect the single scattering properties significantly. In visible bands, inhomogeneity and surface roughness both tend to smooth the phase function and eliminate halos and the backscattering peak. The asymmetry parameter varies with the degree of surface roughness following a U shape - decreases and then increases - with a minimum at around 0.15, whereas it decreases monotonically with the air bubble volume fraction. Air bubble inclusions significantly increase phase matrix element -P_1_2 for scattering angles between 20°–120°, whereas surface roughness has a much weaker effect, increasing -P_1_2 slightly from 60°–120°. Radiative transfer simulations and cirrus cloud property retrievals are conducted by including both the factors. In terms of surface roughness and air bubble volume fraction, retrievals of cirrus cloud optical thickness or the asymmetry parameter using solar bands show similar patterns of variation. Polarimetric simulations using the MC6 cirrus cloud particle habit model are shown to be more consistent with observations when both surface roughness and inhomogeneity are simultaneously considered. - Highlights: • Surface roughness and air bubble inclusions affect optical properties of ice crystals significantly. • Including both factors improves simulations of ice cloud.• Cirrus cloud particle habit model of the MODIS collection 6 achieves better self-consistency and consistency with

Relation of Cloud Occurrence Frequency, Overlap, and Effective Thickness Derived from CALIPSO and CloudSat Merged Cloud Vertical Profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Kato, Seiji; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Miller, Walter F.; Rose, Fred G.; Chen, Yan; Minnis, Patrick; Wielicki, Bruce A.

2009-01-01

A cloud frequency of occurrence matrix is generated using merged cloud vertical profile derived from Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) and Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR). The matrix contains vertical profiles of cloud occurrence frequency as a function of the uppermost cloud top. It is shown that the cloud fraction and uppermost cloud top vertical pro les can be related by a set of equations when the correlation distance of cloud occurrence, which is interpreted as an effective cloud thickness, is introduced. The underlying assumption in establishing the above relation is that cloud overlap approaches the random overlap with increasing distance separating cloud layers and that the probability of deviating from the random overlap decreases exponentially with distance. One month of CALIPSO and CloudSat data support these assumptions. However, the correlation distance sometimes becomes large, which might be an indication of precipitation. The cloud correlation distance is equivalent to the de-correlation distance introduced by Hogan and Illingworth [2000] when cloud fractions of both layers in a two-cloud layer system are the same.

Phase-partitioning in mixed-phase clouds - An approach to characterize the entire vertical column

Science.gov (United States)

Kalesse, H.; Luke, E. P.; Seifert, P.

2017-12-01

The characterization of the entire vertical profile of phase-partitioning in mixed-phase clouds is a challenge which can be addressed by synergistic profiling measurements with ground-based polarization lidars and cloud radars. While lidars are sensitive to small particles and can thus detect supercooled liquid (SCL) layers, cloud radar returns are dominated by larger particles (like ice crystals). The maximum lidar observation height is determined by complete signal attenuation at a penetrated optical depth of about three. In contrast, cloud radars are able to penetrate multiple liquid layers and can thus be used to expand the identification of cloud phase to the entire vertical column beyond the lidar extinction height, if morphological features in the radar Doppler spectrum can be related to the existence of SCL. Relevant spectral signatures such as bimodalities and spectral skewness can be related to cloud phase by training a neural network appropriately in a supervised learning scheme, with lidar measurements functioning as supervisor. The neural network output (prediction of SCL location) derived using cloud radar Doppler spectra can be evaluated with several parameters such as liquid water path (LWP) detected by microwave radiometer (MWR) and (liquid) cloud base detected by ceilometer or Raman lidar. The technique has been previously tested on data from Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) instruments in Barrow, Alaska and is in this study utilized for observations from the Leipzig Aerosol and Cloud Remote Observations System (LACROS) during the Analysis of the Composition of Clouds with Extended Polarization Techniques (ACCEPT) field experiment in Cabauw, Netherlands in Fall 2014. Comparisons to supercooled-liquid layers as classified by CLOUDNET are provided.

An omnibus likelihood test statistic and its factorization for change detection in time series of polarimetric SAR data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Conradsen, Knut; Skriver, Henning

2016-01-01

Based on an omnibus likelihood ratio test statistic for the equality of several variance-covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution with an associated p-value and a factorization of this test statistic, change analysis in a short sequence of multilook, polarimetric SAR data...... in the covariance matrix representation is carried out. The omnibus test statistic and its factorization detect if and when change(s) occur. The technique is demonstrated on airborne EMISAR L-band data but may be applied to Sentinel-1, Cosmo-SkyMed, TerraSAR-X, ALOS and RadarSat-2 or other dual- and quad...

Change detection in a time series of polarimetric SAR data by an omnibus test statistic and its factorization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Conradsen, Knut; Skriver, Henning

2016-01-01

Based on an omnibus likelihood ratio test statistic for the equality of several variance-covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution with an associated p-value and a factorization of this test statistic, change analysis in a short sequence of multilook, polarimetric SAR data...... in the covariance matrix representation is carried out. The omnibus test statistic and its factorization detect if and when change(s) occur. The technique is demonstrated on airborne EMISAR L-band data but may be applied to Sentinel-1, Cosmo-SkyMed, TerraSAR-X, ALOS and RadarSat-2 or other dual- and quad...

Evaluation of Polarimetric SAR Decomposition for Classifying Wetland Vegetation Types

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Sang-Hoon Hong

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The Florida Everglades is the largest subtropical wetland system in the United States and, as with subtropical and tropical wetlands elsewhere, has been threatened by severe environmental stresses. It is very important to monitor such wetlands to inform management on the status of these fragile ecosystems. This study aims to examine the applicability of TerraSAR-X quadruple polarimetric (quad-pol synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR data for classifying wetland vegetation in the Everglades. We processed quad-pol data using the Hong & Wdowinski four-component decomposition, which accounts for double bounce scattering in the cross-polarization signal. The calculated decomposition images consist of four scattering mechanisms (single, co- and cross-pol double, and volume scattering. We applied an object-oriented image analysis approach to classify vegetation types with the decomposition results. We also used a high-resolution multispectral optical RapidEye image to compare statistics and classification results with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR observations. The calculated classification accuracy was higher than 85%, suggesting that the TerraSAR-X quad-pol SAR signal had a high potential for distinguishing different vegetation types. Scattering components from SAR acquisition were particularly advantageous for classifying mangroves along tidal channels. We conclude that the typical scattering behaviors from model-based decomposition are useful for discriminating among different wetland vegetation types.

Winter QPF Sensitivities to Snow Parameterizations and Comparisons to NASA CloudSat Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Molthan, Andrew; Haynes, John M.; Jedlovec, Gary J.; Lapenta, William M.

2009-01-01

Steady increases in computing power have allowed for numerical weather prediction models to be initialized and run at high spatial resolution, permitting a transition from larger scale parameterizations of the effects of clouds and precipitation to the simulation of specific microphysical processes and hydrometeor size distributions. Although still relatively coarse in comparison to true cloud resolving models, these high resolution forecasts (on the order of 4 km or less) have demonstrated value in the prediction of severe storm mode and evolution and are being explored for use in winter weather events . Several single-moment bulk water microphysics schemes are available within the latest release of the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model suite, including the NASA Goddard Cumulus Ensemble, which incorporate some assumptions in the size distribution of a small number of hydrometeor classes in order to predict their evolution, advection and precipitation within the forecast domain. Although many of these schemes produce similar forecasts of events on the synoptic scale, there are often significant details regarding precipitation and cloud cover, as well as the distribution of water mass among the constituent hydrometeor classes. Unfortunately, validating data for cloud resolving model simulations are sparse. Field campaigns require in-cloud measurements of hydrometeors from aircraft in coordination with extensive and coincident ground based measurements. Radar remote sensing is utilized to detect the spatial coverage and structure of precipitation. Here, two radar systems characterize the structure of winter precipitation for comparison to equivalent features within a forecast model: a 3 GHz, Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) based in Omaha, Nebraska, and the 94 GHz NASA CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar, a spaceborne instrument and member of the afternoon or "A-Train" of polar orbiting satellites tasked with cataloguing global cloud

Combined Lidar-Radar Remote Sensing: Initial Results from CRYSTAL-FACE and Implications for Future Spaceflight Missions

Science.gov (United States)

McGill, Matthew J.; Li, Li-Hua; Hart, William D.; Heymsfield, Gerald M.; Hlavka, Dennis L.; Vaughan, Mark A.; Winker, David M.

2003-01-01

In the near future NASA plans to fly satellites carrying a multi-wavelength backscatter lidar and a 94-GHz cloud profiling radar in formation to provide complete global profiling of cloud and aerosol properties. The CRYSTAL-FACE field campaign, conducted during July 2002, provided the first high-altitude colocated measurements from lidar and cloud profiling radar to simulate these spaceborne sensors. The lidar and radar provide complementary measurements with varying degrees of measurement overlap. This paper presents initial results of the combined airborne lidar-radar measurements during CRYSTAL-FACE. The overlap of instrument sensitivity is presented, within the context of particular CRYSTAL-FACE conditions. Results are presented to quantify the portion of atmospheric profiles sensed independently by each instrument and the portion sensed simultaneously by the two instruments.

Physical Validation of GPM Retrieval Algorithms Over Land: An Overview of the Mid-Latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E)

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Walter A.; Jensen, Michael P.

2011-01-01

The joint NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) -- DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) was conducted from April 22-June 6, 2011, centered on the DOE-ARM Southern Great Plains Central Facility site in northern Oklahoma. GPM field campaign objectives focused on the collection of airborne and ground-based measurements of warm-season continental precipitation processes to support refinement of GPM retrieval algorithm physics over land, and to improve the fidelity of coupled cloud resolving and land-surface satellite simulator models. DOE ARM objectives were synergistically focused on relating observations of cloud microphysics and the surrounding environment to feedbacks on convective system dynamics, an effort driven by the need to better represent those interactions in numerical modeling frameworks. More specific topics addressed by MC3E include ice processes and ice characteristics as coupled to precipitation at the surface and radiometer signals measured in space, the correlation properties of rainfall and drop size distributions and impacts on dual-frequency radar retrieval algorithms, the transition of cloud water to rain water (e.g., autoconversion processes) and the vertical distribution of cloud water in precipitating clouds, and vertical draft structure statistics in cumulus convection. The MC3E observational strategy relied on NASA ER-2 high-altitude airborne multi-frequency radar (HIWRAP Ka-Ku band) and radiometer (AMPR, CoSMIR; 10-183 GHz) sampling (a GPM "proxy") over an atmospheric column being simultaneously profiled in situ by the University of North Dakota Citation microphysics aircraft, an array of ground-based multi-frequency scanning polarimetric radars (DOE Ka-W, X and C-band; NASA D3R Ka-Ku and NPOL S-bands) and wind-profilers (S/UHF bands), supported by a dense network of over 20 disdrometers and rain gauges, all nested in the coverage of a six-station mesoscale rawinsonde

Active sensor synergy for arctic cloud microphysics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sato Kaori

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In this study, we focus on the retrieval of liquid and ice-phase cloud microphysics from spaceborne and ground-based lidar-cloud radar synergy. As an application of the cloud retrieval algorithm developed for the EarthCARE satellite mission (JAXA-ESA [1], the derived statistics of cloud microphysical properties in high latitudes and their relation to the Arctic climate are investigated.

Investigating nearby exoplanets via interstellar radar

Science.gov (United States)

Scheffer, Louis K.

2014-01-01

Interstellar radar is a potential intermediate step between passive observation of exoplanets and interstellar exploratory missions. Compared with passive observation, it has the traditional advantages of radar astronomy. It can measure surface characteristics, determine spin rates and axes, provide extremely accurate ranges, construct maps of planets, distinguish liquid from solid surfaces, find rings and moons, and penetrate clouds. It can do this even for planets close to the parent star. Compared with interstellar travel or probes, it also offers significant advantages. The technology required to build such a radar already exists, radar can return results within a human lifetime, and a single facility can investigate thousands of planetary systems. The cost, although too high for current implementation, is within the reach of Earth's economy.

Forestry applications of ground-penetrating radar

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lorenzo, H.; Perez-Gracia, V.; Novo, A.; Armesto, J.

2010-07-01

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical and close-range remote sensing technique based on the use of radar pulses to obtain cross-section images of underground features. This method is characterized by the transmission of an electromagnetic short length pulse (1-2 ns), presenting a centre frequency ranging from 10 MHz to 2.5 GHz. The principles of GPR operation are based on the ability of low frequency radar waves to penetrate into a non-conductive medium, usually subsoil, but also walls, concrete or wood. Those waves are detected after suffering a reflection in electromagnetic discontinuities of the propagation medium. Therefore, this is a suitable method to study changes in those physical properties, and also to characterize different mediums and the reflective targets providing information about their physical properties. The aim of this work is to describe and demonstrate different applications of GPR in forestry, showing the obtained results together with their interpretation. Firstly, in this paper, it is illustrated how GPR is able to map shallow bedrock, subsoil stratigraphy and also to estimate shallow water table depth. Secondly, different tree trunks as well as dry timber are analyzed, evaluating the different radar data obtained in each particular case, and observing differences in their electromagnetic properties related to the GPR response. Finally, several measurements were taken in order to analyze the use of GPR to detect tree root systems using polarimetric techniques, being possible to detect medium and big size roots, together with groups of small roots. (Author) 39 refs.

Combined Use of Multi-Temporal Optical and Radar Satellite Images for Grassland Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pauline Dusseux

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to assess the ability of optical images, SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar images and the combination of both types of data to discriminate between grasslands and crops in agricultural areas where cloud cover is very high most of the time, which restricts the use of visible and near-infrared satellite data. We compared the performances of variables extracted from four optical and five SAR satellite images with high/very high spatial resolutions acquired during the growing season. A vegetation index, namely the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, and two biophysical variables, the LAI (Leaf Area Index and the fCOVER (fraction of Vegetation Cover were computed using optical time series and polarization (HH, VV, HV, VH. The polarization ratio and polarimetric decomposition (Freeman–Durden and Cloude–Pottier were calculated using SAR time series. Then, variables derived from optical, SAR and both types of remotely-sensed data were successively classified using the Support Vector Machine (SVM technique. The results show that the classification accuracy of SAR variables is higher than those using optical data (0.98 compared to 0.81. They also highlight that the combination of optical and SAR time series data is of prime interest to discriminate grasslands from crops, allowing an improved classification accuracy.

A physically based algorithm for non-blackbody correction of the cloud top temperature for the convective clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, C.; Luo, Z. J.; Chen, X.; Zeng, X.; Tao, W.; Huang, X.

2012-12-01

Cloud top temperature is a key parameter to retrieval in the remote sensing of convective clouds. Passive remote sensing cannot directly measure the temperature at the cloud tops. Here we explore a synergistic way of estimating cloud top temperature by making use of the simultaneous passive and active remote sensing of clouds (in this case, CloudSat and MODIS). Weighting function of the MODIS 11μm band is explicitly calculated by feeding cloud hydrometer profiles from CloudSat retrievals and temperature and humidity profiles based on ECMWF ERA-interim reanalysis into a radiation transfer model. Among 19,699 tropical deep convective clouds observed by the CloudSat in 2008, the averaged effective emission level (EEL, where the weighting function attains its maximum) is at optical depth 0.91 with a standard deviation of 0.33. Furthermore, the vertical gradient of CloudSat radar reflectivity, an indicator of the fuzziness of convective cloud top, is linearly proportional to, d_{CTH-EEL}, the distance between the EEL of 11μm channel and cloud top height (CTH) determined by the CloudSat when d_{CTH-EEL}<0.6km. Beyond 0.6km, the distance has little sensitivity to the vertical gradient of CloudSat radar reflectivity. Based on these findings, we derive a formula between the fuzziness in the cloud top region, which is measurable by CloudSat, and the MODIS 11μm brightness temperature assuming that the difference between effective emission temperature and the 11μm brightness temperature is proportional to the cloud top fuzziness. This formula is verified using the simulated deep convective cloud profiles by the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble model. We further discuss the application of this formula in estimating cloud top buoyancy as well as the error characteristics of the radiative calculation within such deep-convective clouds.

Multiscale Analysis of the Water Content Output the NWP Model COSMO Over Switzerland and Comparison With Radar Data

Science.gov (United States)

Wolfensberger, D.; Gires, A.; Berne, A.; Tchiguirinskaia, I.; Schertzer, D. J. M.

2015-12-01

physical process at stake during the events.Second Multifractal comparisons of model outputs will also be made with radar data provided by the Meteo Swiss, both indirectly in terms of precipitation intensities and directly using a polarimetric forward radar operator which is able to simulate radar observations from model outputs.

Scale analysis of convective clouds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Micha Gryschka

2008-12-01

Full Text Available The size distribution of cumulus clouds due to shallow and deep convection is analyzed using satellite pictures, LES model results and data from the German rain radar network. The size distributions found can be described by simple power laws as has also been proposed for other cloud data in the literature. As the observed precipitation at ground stations is finally determined by cloud numbers in an area and individual sizes and rain rates of single clouds, the cloud size distributions might be used for developing empirical precipitation forecasts or for validating results from cloud resolving models being introduced to routine weather forecasts.

Heterogeneity Measurement Based on Distance Measure for Polarimetric SAR Data

Science.gov (United States)

Xing, Xiaoli; Chen, Qihao; Liu, Xiuguo

2018-04-01

To effectively test the scene heterogeneity for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data, in this paper, the distance measure is introduced by utilizing the similarity between the sample and pixels. Moreover, given the influence of the distribution and modeling texture, the K distance measure is deduced according to the Wishart distance measure. Specifically, the average of the pixels in the local window replaces the class center coherency or covariance matrix. The Wishart and K distance measure are calculated between the average matrix and the pixels. Then, the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean is established for the Wishart and K distance measure, and the two features are defined and applied to reflect the complexity of the scene. The proposed heterogeneity measure is proceeded by integrating the two features using the Pauli basis. The experiments conducted on the single-look and multilook PolSAR data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the detection of the scene heterogeneity.

POLARIMETRIC OBSERVATIONS OF {sigma} ORIONIS E

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Carciofi, A. C.; Faes, D. M. [Instituto de Astronomia, Geofisica e Ciencias Atmosfericas, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Rua do Matao 1226, Cidade Universitaria, 05508-900 Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil); Townsend, R. H. D. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sterling Hall, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Bjorkman, J. E., E-mail: carciofi@usp.br [Ritter Observatory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606 (United States)

2013-03-20

Some massive stars possess strong magnetic fields that confine plasma in the circumstellar environment. These magnetospheres have been studied spectroscopically, photometrically, and, more recently, interferometrically. Here we report on the first firm detection of a magnetosphere in continuum linear polarization, as a result of monitoring {sigma} Ori E at the Pico dos Dias Observatory. The non-zero intrinsic polarization indicates an asymmetric structure whose minor elongation axis is oriented 150. Degree-Sign 0 east of the celestial north. A modulation of the polarization was observed with a period of half of the rotation period, which supports the theoretical prediction of the presence of two diametrally opposed, corotating blobs of gas. A phase lag of -0.085 was detected between the polarization minimum and the primary minimum of the light curve, suggestive of a complex shape of the plasma clouds. We present a preliminary analysis of the data with the Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere model, which could not reproduce simultaneously the photometric and polarimetric data. A toy model comprising two spherical corotating blobs joined by a thin disk proved more successful in reproducing the polarization modulation. With this model we were able to determine that the total scattering mass of the thin disk is similar to the mass of the blobs (2M{sub b}/M{sub d} = 1.2) and that the blobs are rotating counterclockwise on the plane of the sky. This result shows that polarimetry can provide a diagnostic of the geometry of clouds, which will serve as an important constraint for improving the Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere model.

A WFS-SVM Model for Soil Salinity Mapping in Keriya Oasis, Northwestern China Using Polarimetric Decomposition and Fully PolSAR Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ilyas Nurmemet

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Timely monitoring and mapping of salt-affected areas are essential for the prevention of land degradation and sustainable soil management in arid and semi-arid regions. The main objective of this study was to develop Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR polarimetry techniques for improved soil salinity mapping in the Keriya Oasis in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang, China, where salinized soil appears to be a major threat to local agricultural productivity. Multiple polarimetric target decomposition, optimal feature subset selection (wrapper feature selector, WFS, and support vector machine (SVM algorithms were used for optimal soil salinization classification using quad-polarized PALSAR-2 data. A threefold exercise was conducted. First, 16 polarimetric decomposition methods were implemented and a wide range of polarimetric parameters and SAR discriminators were derived in order to mine hidden information in PolSAR data. Second, the optimal polarimetric feature subset that constitutes 19 polarimetric elements was selected adopting the WFS approach; optimum classification parameters were identified, and the optimal SVM classification model was obtained by employing a cross-validation method. Third, the WFS-SVM classification model was constructed, optimized, and implemented based on the optimal match of polarimetric features and optimum classification parameters. Soils with different salinization degrees (i.e., highly, moderately and slightly salinized soils were extracted. Finally, classification results were compared with the Wishart supervised classification and conventional SVM classification to examine the performance of the proposed method for salinity mapping. Detailed field investigations and ground data were used for the validation of the adopted methods. The overall accuracy and kappa coefficient of the proposed WFS-SVM model were 87.57% and 0.85, respectively that were much higher than those obtained by the Wishart supervised

Scattering Mechanism Extraction by a Modified Cloude-Pottier Decomposition for Dual Polarization SAR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kefeng Ji

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Dual polarization is a typical operational mode of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR. However, few studies have considered the scattering mechanism extraction of dual-polarization SARs. A modified Cloude-Pottier decomposition is proposed to investigate the performance of the scattering mechanism extraction of dual-polarization SARs. It is theoretically demonstrated that only HH-VV SAR can discriminate the three canonical scattering mechanisms from an isotropic surface, horizontal dipole, and isotropic dihedral. Various experiments are conducted using 21 scenes from real datasets acquired by AIRSAR, Convair-580 SAR, EMISAR, E-SAR, Pi-SAR, and RADARSAT-2. Division of the dual-polarization H-α plane is experimentally obtained. The lack of cross-polarization induces the diffusion of scattering mechanisms and their overlap in the HH-VV H-α plane. However, the performance of HH-VV SAR for extracting scattering mechanisms is acceptable. Thus, HH-VV SAR is a suitable alternative to full-polarization SAR in certain cases. Meanwhile, the extraction performance of the other two dual-polarization SARs is badly degraded due to the lack of co-polarization. Therefore, HH-HV and HV-VV SARs cannot effectively extract the scattering mechanisms in the H-α plane.

Doppler weather radar observations of the 2009 eruption of Redoubt Volcano, Alaska

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, David J.; Hoblitt, Richard P.

2013-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a transportable Doppler C-band radar during the precursory stage of the 2009 eruption of Redoubt Volcano, Alaska that provided valuable information during subsequent explosive events. We describe the capabilities of this new monitoring tool and present data captured during the Redoubt eruption. The MiniMax 250-C (MM-250C) radar detected seventeen of the nineteen largest explosive events between March 23 and April 4, 2009. Sixteen of these events reached the stratosphere (above 10 km) within 2–5 min of explosion onset. High column and proximal cloud reflectivity values (50 to 60 dBZ) were observed from many of these events, and were likely due to the formation of mm-sized accretionary tephra-ice pellets. Reflectivity data suggest that these pellets formed within the first few minutes of explosion onset. Rapid sedimentation of the mm-sized pellets was observed as a decrease in maximum detection cloud height. The volcanic cloud from the April 4 explosive event showed lower reflectivity values, due to finer particle sizes (related to dome collapse and related pyroclastic flows) and lack of significant pellet formation. Eruption durations determined by the radar were within a factor of two compared to seismic and pressure-sensor derived estimates, and were not well correlated. Ash dispersion observed by the radar was primarily in the upper troposphere below 10 km, but satellite observations indicate the presence of volcanogenic clouds in the stratosphere. This study suggests that radar is a valuable complement to traditional seismic and satellite monitoring of explosive eruptions.

Radar detectability studies of slow and small zodiacal dust cloud particles. I. The case of Arecibo 430 MHz meteor head echo observations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Janches, D.; Plane, J. M. C.; Feng, W.; Nesvorný, D.; Vokrouhlický, D.; Nicolls, M. J.

2014-01-01

Recent model development of the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (ZDC) argues that the incoming flux of meteoric material into the Earth's upper atmosphere is mostly undetected by radars because they cannot detect small extraterrestrial particles entering the atmosphere at low velocities due to the relatively small production of electrons. In this paper, we present a new methodology utilizing meteor head echo radar observations that aims to constrain the ZDC physical model by ground-based measurements. In particular, for this work, we focus on Arecibo 430 MHz observations since this is the most sensitive radar utilized for this type of observations to date. For this, we integrate and employ existing comprehensive models of meteoroid ablation, ionization, and radar detection to enable accurate interpretation of radar observations and show that reasonable agreement in the hourly rates is found between model predictions and Arecibo observations when (1) we invoke the lower limit of the model predicted flux (∼16 t d –1 ) and (2) we estimate the ionization probability of ablating metal atoms using laboratory measurements of the ionization cross sections of high-speed metal atom beams, resulting in values up to two orders of magnitude lower than the extensively utilized figure reported by Jones for low-speed meteors. However, even at this lower limit, the model overpredicts the slow portion of the Arecibo radial velocity distributions by a factor of three, suggesting that the model requires some revision.

Radar detectability studies of slow and small zodiacal dust cloud particles. I. The case of Arecibo 430 MHz meteor head echo observations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Janches, D. [Space Weather Laboratory, Mail Code 674, GSFC/NASA, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Plane, J. M. C.; Feng, W. [School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT (United Kingdom); Nesvorný, D. [SouthWest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302 (United States); Vokrouhlický, D. [Institute of Astronomy, Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic); Nicolls, M. J., E-mail: diego.janches@nasa.gov, E-mail: j.m.c.plane@leeds.ac.uk, E-mail: w.feng@leeds.ac.uk, E-mail: davidn@boulder.swri.edu, E-mail: vokrouhl@cesnet.cz, E-mail: Michael.Nicolls@sri.com [SRI International, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (United States)

2014-11-20

Recent model development of the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (ZDC) argues that the incoming flux of meteoric material into the Earth's upper atmosphere is mostly undetected by radars because they cannot detect small extraterrestrial particles entering the atmosphere at low velocities due to the relatively small production of electrons. In this paper, we present a new methodology utilizing meteor head echo radar observations that aims to constrain the ZDC physical model by ground-based measurements. In particular, for this work, we focus on Arecibo 430 MHz observations since this is the most sensitive radar utilized for this type of observations to date. For this, we integrate and employ existing comprehensive models of meteoroid ablation, ionization, and radar detection to enable accurate interpretation of radar observations and show that reasonable agreement in the hourly rates is found between model predictions and Arecibo observations when (1) we invoke the lower limit of the model predicted flux (∼16 t d{sup –1}) and (2) we estimate the ionization probability of ablating metal atoms using laboratory measurements of the ionization cross sections of high-speed metal atom beams, resulting in values up to two orders of magnitude lower than the extensively utilized figure reported by Jones for low-speed meteors. However, even at this lower limit, the model overpredicts the slow portion of the Arecibo radial velocity distributions by a factor of three, suggesting that the model requires some revision.

Radar Detectability Studies of Slow and Small Zodiacal Dust Cloud Particles: I. The Case of Arecibo 430 MHz Meteor Head Echo Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Janches, D.; Plane, J. M. C.; Nesvorny, D.; Feng, W.; Vokrouhlicky, D.; Nicolls, M. J.

2014-01-01

Recent model development of the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (ZDC) model (Nesvorny et al. 2010, 2011b) argue that the incoming flux of meteoric material into the Earth's upper atmosphere is mostly undetected by radars because they cannot detect small extraterrestrial particles entering the atmosphere at low velocities due to the relatively small production of electrons. In this paper we present a new methodology utilizing meteor head echo radar observations that aims to constrain the ZDC physical model by ground-based measurements. In particular, for this work, we focus on Arecibo 430 MHz observations since this is the most sensitive radar utilized for this type of observations to date. For this, we integrate and employ existing comprehensive models of meteoroid ablation, ionization and radar detection to enable accurate interpretation of radar observations and show that reasonable agreement in the hourly rates is found between model predictions and Arecibo observations when: 1) we invoke the lower limit of the model predicted flux (approximately 16 t/d) and 2) we estimate the ionization probability of ablating metal atoms using laboratory measurements of the ionization cross sections of high speed metal atom beams, resulting in values up to two orders of magnitude lower than the extensively utilized figure reported by Jones (1997) for low speeds meteors. However, even at this lower limit the model over predicts the slow portion of the Arecibo radial velocity distributions by a factor of 3, suggesting the model requires some revision.

Four-Component Scattering Power Decomposition Algorithm with Rotation of Covariance Matrix Using ALOS-PALSAR Polarimetric Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yasuhiro Nakamura

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The present study introduces the four-component scattering power decomposition (4-CSPD algorithm with rotation of covariance matrix, and presents an experimental proof of the equivalence between the 4-CSPD algorithms based on rotation of covariance matrix and coherency matrix. From a theoretical point of view, the 4-CSPD algorithms with rotation of the two matrices are identical. Although it seems obvious, no experimental evidence has yet been presented. In this paper, using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (POLSAR data acquired by Phased Array L-band SAR (PALSAR on board of Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS, an experimental proof is presented to show that both algorithms indeed produce identical results.

Science data collection with polarimetric SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall, Jørgen; Woelders, Kim; Madsen, Søren Nørvang

1996-01-01

Discusses examples on the use of polarimetric SAR in a number of Earth science studies. The studies are presently being conducted by the Danish Center for Remote Sensing. A few studies of the European Space Agency's EMAC programme are also discussed. The Earth science objectives are presented......, and the potential of polarimetric SAR is discussed and illustrated with data collected by the Danish airborne EMISAR system during a number of experiments in 1994 and 1995. The presentation will include samples of data acquired for the different studies...

Vertical structure of orographic precipitating clouds observed over ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Shailendra Kumar

2017-11-23

Nov 23, 2017 ... the highest over the Western Ghats and the eastern Arabian Sea. ... Shallow clouds; mixed phase clouds; TRMM PR; Western Ghats; radar reflectivity. ..... The focus in the present work is on iden- ... A similar behaviour, but at.

The classification of ambiguity in polarimetric reconstruction of coronal mass ejection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dai, Xinghua; Wang, Huaning; Huang, Xin; Du, Zhanle; He, Han

2014-01-01

The Thomson scattering theory indicates that there exist explicit and implicit ambiguities in polarimetric analyses of coronal mass ejection (CME) observations. We suggest a classification for these ambiguities in CME reconstruction. Three samples, including double explicit, mixed, and double implicit ambiguity, are shown with the polarimetric analyses of STEREO CME observations. These samples demonstrate that this classification is helpful for improving polarimetric reconstruction.

Pulse-based internal calibration of polarimetric SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall, Jørgen; Skou, Niels; Christensen, Erik Lintz

1994-01-01

Internal calibration greatly diminishes the dependence on calibration target deployment compared to external calibration. Therefore the Electromagnetics Institute (EMI) at the Technical University of Denmark (TUD) has equipped its polarimetric SAR, EMISAR, with several calibration loops and devel......Internal calibration greatly diminishes the dependence on calibration target deployment compared to external calibration. Therefore the Electromagnetics Institute (EMI) at the Technical University of Denmark (TUD) has equipped its polarimetric SAR, EMISAR, with several calibration loops...

HIGH-RESOLUTION LINEAR POLARIMETRIC IMAGING FOR THE EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chael, Andrew A.; Johnson, Michael D.; Narayan, Ramesh; Doeleman, Sheperd S. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Wardle, John F. C. [Brandeis University, Physics Department, Waltham, MA 02454 (United States); Bouman, Katherine L., E-mail: achael@cfa.harvard.edu [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)

2016-09-20

Images of the linear polarizations of synchrotron radiation around active galactic nuclei (AGNs) highlight their projected magnetic field lines and provide key data for understanding the physics of accretion and outflow from supermassive black holes. The highest-resolution polarimetric images of AGNs are produced with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Because VLBI incompletely samples the Fourier transform of the source image, any image reconstruction that fills in unmeasured spatial frequencies will not be unique and reconstruction algorithms are required. In this paper, we explore some extensions of the Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) to linear polarimetric VLBI imaging. In contrast to previous work, our polarimetric MEM algorithm combines a Stokes I imager that only uses bispectrum measurements that are immune to atmospheric phase corruption, with a joint Stokes Q and U imager that operates on robust polarimetric ratios. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique on 7 and 3 mm wavelength quasar observations from the VLBA and simulated 1.3 mm Event Horizon Telescope observations of Sgr A* and M87. Consistent with past studies, we find that polarimetric MEM can produce superior resolution compared to the standard CLEAN algorithm, when imaging smooth and compact source distributions. As an imaging framework, MEM is highly adaptable, allowing a range of constraints on polarization structure. Polarimetric MEM is thus an attractive choice for image reconstruction with the EHT.

Assimilation of ZDR Columns for Improving the Spin-Up and Forecasts of Convective Storms

Science.gov (United States)

Carlin, J.; Gao, J.; Snyder, J.; Ryzhkov, A.

2017-12-01

A primary motivation for assimilating radar reflectivity data is the reduction of spin-up time for modeled convection. To accomplish this, cloud analysis techniques seek to induce and sustain convective updrafts in storm-scale models by inserting temperature and moisture increments and hydrometeor mixing ratios into the model analysis from simple relations with reflectivity. Polarimetric radar data provide additional insight into the microphysical and dynamic structure of convection. In particular, the radar meteorology community has known for decades that convective updrafts cause, and are typically co-located with, differential reflectivity (ZDR) columns - vertical protrusions of enhanced ZDR above the environmental 0˚C level. Despite these benefits, limited work has been done thus far to assimilate dual-polarization radar data into numerical weather prediction models. In this study, we explore the utility of assimilating ZDR columns to improve storm-scale model analyses and forecasts of convection. We modify the existing Advanced Regional Prediction System's (ARPS) cloud analysis routine to adjust model temperature and moisture state variables using detected ZDR columns as proxies for convective updrafts, and compare the resultant cycled analyses and forecasts with those from the original reflectivity-based cloud analysis formulation. Results indicate qualitative and quantitative improvements from assimilating ZDR columns, including more coherent analyzed updrafts, forecast updraft helicity swaths that better match radar-derived rotation tracks, more realistic forecast reflectivity fields, and larger equitable threat scores. These findings support the use of dual-polarization radar signatures to improve storm-scale model analyses and forecasts.

Retrieval of Cloud Properties for Partially Cloud-Filled Pixels During CRYSTAL-FACE

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, L.; Minnis, P.; Smith, W. L.; Khaiyer, M. M.; Heck, P. W.; Sun-Mack, S.; Uttal, T.; Comstock, J.

2003-12-01

resolution. Results are compared with the radar reflectivity techniques employed by the NOAA ETL MMCR and the PARSL 94 GHz radars located at the CRYSTAL-FACE Eastern & Western Ground Sites, respectively. This technique is most likely to yield improvements for low and midlevel layer clouds that have little thermal variability in cloud height.

Knowledge-based sea ice classification by polarimetric SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning; Dierking, Wolfgang

2004-01-01

Polarimetric SAR images acquired at C- and L-band over sea ice in the Greenland Sea, Baltic Sea, and Beaufort Sea have been analysed with respect to their potential for ice type classification. The polarimetric data were gathered by the Danish EMISAR and the US AIRSAR which both are airborne...... systems. A hierarchical classification scheme was chosen for sea ice because our knowledge about magnitudes, variations, and dependences of sea ice signatures can be directly considered. The optimal sequence of classification rules and the rules themselves depend on the ice conditions/regimes. The use...... of the polarimetric phase information improves the classification only in the case of thin ice types but is not necessary for thicker ice (above about 30 cm thickness)...

Cloud type comparisons of AIRS, CloudSat, and CALIPSO cloud height and amount

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. H. Kahn

2008-03-01

Full Text Available The precision of the two-layer cloud height fields derived from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS is explored and quantified for a five-day set of observations. Coincident profiles of vertical cloud structure by CloudSat, a 94 GHz profiling radar, and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO, are compared to AIRS for a wide range of cloud types. Bias and variability in cloud height differences are shown to have dependence on cloud type, height, and amount, as well as whether CloudSat or CALIPSO is used as the comparison standard. The CloudSat-AIRS biases and variability range from −4.3 to 0.5±1.2–3.6 km for all cloud types. Likewise, the CALIPSO-AIRS biases range from 0.6–3.0±1.2–3.6 km (−5.8 to −0.2±0.5–2.7 km for clouds ≥7 km (<7 km. The upper layer of AIRS has the greatest sensitivity to Altocumulus, Altostratus, Cirrus, Cumulonimbus, and Nimbostratus, whereas the lower layer has the greatest sensitivity to Cumulus and Stratocumulus. Although the bias and variability generally decrease with increasing cloud amount, the ability of AIRS to constrain cloud occurrence, height, and amount is demonstrated across all cloud types for many geophysical conditions. In particular, skill is demonstrated for thin Cirrus, as well as some Cumulus and Stratocumulus, cloud types infrared sounders typically struggle to quantify. Furthermore, some improvements in the AIRS Version 5 operational retrieval algorithm are demonstrated. However, limitations in AIRS cloud retrievals are also revealed, including the existence of spurious Cirrus near the tropopause and low cloud layers within Cumulonimbus and Nimbostratus clouds. Likely causes of spurious clouds are identified and the potential for further improvement is discussed.

Measurements of mesospheric ice aerosols using radars and rockets

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Strelnikova, Irina; Li, Qiang; Strelnikov, Boris; Rapp, Markus [Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Kuehlungsborn (Germany)

2010-07-01

Polar summer mesopause is the coldest region of Earth's atmosphere with temperatures as low as minus 130 C. In this extreme environment ice aerosol layers have appeared. Larger aerosols can be seen from the ground as clouds known as NLC (Noctilucent clouds). Ice aerosols from sub-visible range give rise to the phenomena known as Polar Mesosphere Sommer Echo (PMSE). For efficient scattering, electron number density must be structured at the radar half wavelength (Bragg condition). The general requirement to allow for the observation of structures at VHF and higher frequencies is that the dust size (and charge number) must be large enough to extend the convective-diffusive subrange of the energy spectrum of electrons (by reducing their diffusivity) to the wavelength which is shorter than the Bragg-scale of the probing radar. In this paper we present main results of ice particles measurements inside the PMSE layers obtained from in situ rocket soundings and newly developed radar techniques.

Landslide Mapping in Vegetated Areas Using Change Detection Based on Optical and Polarimetric SAR Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon Plank

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Mapping of landslides, quickly providing information about the extent of the affected area and type and grade of damage, is crucial to enable fast crisis response, i.e., to support rescue and humanitarian operations. Most synthetic aperture radar (SAR data-based landslide detection approaches reported in the literature use change detection techniques, requiring very high resolution (VHR SAR imagery acquired shortly before the landslide event, which is commonly not available. Modern VHR SAR missions, e.g., Radarsat-2, TerraSAR-X, or COSMO-SkyMed, do not systematically cover the entire world, due to limitations in onboard disk space and downlink transmission rates. Here, we present a fast and transferable procedure for mapping of landslides, based on change detection between pre-event optical imagery and the polarimetric entropy derived from post-event VHR polarimetric SAR data. Pre-event information is derived from high resolution optical imagery of Landsat-8 or Sentinel-2, which are freely available and systematically acquired over the entire Earth’s landmass. The landslide mapping is refined by slope information from a digital elevation model generated from bi-static TanDEM-X imagery. The methodology was successfully applied to two landslide events of different characteristics: A rotational slide near Charleston, West Virginia, USA and a mining waste earthflow near Bolshaya Talda, Russia.

Evaluation of the Wishart test statistics for polarimetric SAR data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Conradsen, Knut

2003-01-01

A test statistic for equality of two covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution has previously been used in new algorithms for change detection, edge detection and segmentation in polarimetric SAR images. Previously, the results for change detection and edge detection have been...... quantitatively evaluated. This paper deals with the evaluation of segmentation. A segmentation performance measure originally developed for single-channel SAR images has been extended to polarimetric SAR images, and used to evaluate segmentation for a merge-using-moment algorithm for polarimetric SAR data....

Polar cloud observatory at Ny-Ålesund in GRENE Arctic Climate Change Research Project

Science.gov (United States)

Yamanouchi, Takashi; Takano, Toshiaki; Shiobara, Masataka; Okamoto, Hajime; Koike, Makoto; Ukita, Jinro

2016-04-01

Cloud is one of the main processes in the climate system and especially a large feed back agent for Arctic warming amplification (Yoshimori et al., 2014). From this reason, observation of polar cloud has been emphasized and 95 GHz cloud profiling radar in high precision was established at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard in 2013 as one of the basic infrastructure in the GRENE (Green Network of Excellence Program) Arctic Climate Change Research Project. The radar, "FALCON-A", is a FM-CW (frequency modulated continuous wave) Doppler radar, developed for Arctic use by Chiba University (PI: T. Takano) in 2012, following its prototype, "FALCON-1" which was developed in 2006 (Takano et al., 2010). The specifications of the radar are, central frequency: 94.84 GHz; antenna power: 1 W; observation height: up to 15 km; range resolution: 48 m; beam width: 0.2 degree (15 m at 5 km); Doppler width: 3.2 m/s; time interval: 10 sec, and capable of archiving high sensitivity and high spatial and time resolution. An FM-CW type radar realizes similar sensitivity with much smaller parabolic antennas separated 1.4 m from each other used for transmitting and receiving the wave. Polarized Micro-Pulse Lidar (PMPL, Sigma Space MPL-4B-IDS), which is capable to measure the backscatter and depolarization ratio, has also been deployed to Ny-Ålesund in March 2012, and now operated to perform collocated measurements with FALCON-A. Simultaneous measurement data from collocated PMPL and FALCON-A are available for synergetic analyses of cloud microphysics. Cloud mycrophysics, such as effective radius of ice particles and ice water content, are obtained from the analysis based on algorithm, which is modified for ground-based measurements from Okamoto's retrieval algorithm for satellite based cloud profiling radar and lidar (CloudSat and CALIPSO; Okamoto et al., 2010). Results of two years will be shown in the presentation. Calibration is a point to derive radar reflectivity (dBZ) from original intensity data

Relationships among cloud occurrence frequency, overlap, and effective thickness derived from CALIPSO and CloudSat merged cloud vertical profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Kato, Seiji; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Miller, Walter F.; Rose, Fred G.; Chen, Yan; Minnis, Patrick; Wielicki, Bruce A.

2010-01-01

A cloud frequency of occurrence matrix is generated using merged cloud vertical profiles derived from the satellite-borne Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) and cloud profiling radar. The matrix contains vertical profiles of cloud occurrence frequency as a function of the uppermost cloud top. It is shown that the cloud fraction and uppermost cloud top vertical profiles can be related by a cloud overlap matrix when the correlation length of cloud occurrence, which is interpreted as an effective cloud thickness, is introduced. The underlying assumption in establishing the above relation is that cloud overlap approaches random overlap with increasing distance separating cloud layers and that the probability of deviating from random overlap decreases exponentially with distance. One month of Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) and CloudSat data (July 2006) support these assumptions, although the correlation length sometimes increases with separation distance when the cloud top height is large. The data also show that the correlation length depends on cloud top hight and the maximum occurs when the cloud top height is 8 to 10 km. The cloud correlation length is equivalent to the decorrelation distance introduced by Hogan and Illingworth (2000) when cloud fractions of both layers in a two-cloud layer system are the same. The simple relationships derived in this study can be used to estimate the top-of-atmosphere irradiance difference caused by cloud fraction, uppermost cloud top, and cloud thickness vertical profile differences.

Common volume coherent and incoherent scatter radar observations of mid-latitude sporadic E-layers and QP echoes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. L. Hysell

2004-09-01

Full Text Available Common-volume observations of sporadic E-layers made on 14-15 June 2002 with the Arecibo incoherent scatter radar and a 30MHz coherent scatter radar imager located on St. Croix are described. Operating in dual-beam mode, the Arecibo radar detected a slowly descending sporadic E-layer accompanied by a series of dense E-region plasma clouds at a time when the coherent scatter radar was detecting quasi-periodic (QP echoes. Using coherent radar imaging, we collocate the sources of the coherent scatter with the plasma clouds observed by Arecibo. In addition to patchy, polarized scattering regions drifting through the radar illuminated volume, which have been observed in previous imaging experiments, the 30MHz radar also detected large-scale electrostatic waves in the E-region over Puerto Rico, with a wavelength of about 30km and a period of about 10min, propagating to the southwest. Both the intensity and the Doppler shifts of the coherent echoes were modulated by the wave.

Synergy between Sentinel-1 radar time series and Sentinel-2 optical for the mapping of restored areas in Danube delta

Science.gov (United States)

Niculescu, Simona; Lardeux, Cédric; Hanganu, Jenica

2018-05-01

Wetlands are important and valuable ecosystems, yet, since 1900, more than 50 % of wetlands have been lost worldwide. An example of altered and partially restored coastal wetlands is the Danube Delta in Romania. Over time, human intervention has manifested itself in more than a quarter of the entire Danube surface. This intervention was brutal and has rendered ecosystem restoration very difficult. Studies for the rehabilitation / re-vegetation were started immediately after the Danube Delta was declared as a Biosphere Reservation in 1990. Remote sensing offers accurate methods for detecting and mapping change in restored wetlands. Vegetation change detection is a powerful indicator of restoration success. The restoration projects use vegetative cover as an important indicator of restoration success. To follow the evolution of the vegetation cover of the restored areas, satellite images radar and optical of last generation have been used, such as Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2. Indeed the sensor sensitivity to the landscape depends on the wavelength what- ever radar or optical data and their polarization for radar data. Combining this kind of data is particularly relevant for the classification of wetland vegetation, which are associated with the density and size of the vegetation. In addition, the high temporal acquisition frequency of Sentinel-1 which are not sensitive to cloud cover al- low to use temporal signature of the different land cover. Thus we analyse the polarimetric and temporal signature of Sentinel-1 data in order to better understand the signature of the different study classes. In a second phase, we performed classifications based on the Random Forest supervised classification algorithm involving the entire Sentinel-1 time series, then starting from a Sentinel-2 collection and finally involving combinations of Sentinel-1 and -2 data.

Preliminary Evaluation of GAOFEN-3 Polarimetric and Radiometric Accuracy by Corner Reflectors in Inner Mongolia

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, L.; Ding, X.; Li, P.; Yang, J.; Zhao, L.; Yang, L.; Chang, Y.; Yan, L.

2018-04-01

On August 10, 2016, China launched its first C-band full polarimetric radar satellite, named Gaofen-3 (GF-3), for urban and agriculture monitoring, landslide detection, ocean applications, etc. According to the design specification, GF-3 is expected to work at -35 dB crosstalk and 0.5 dB channel imbalance, with less than 10 degree error. The absolute radiometric bias is expected to be less than 1.5 dB in a single scene and 2.0 dB when operating for a long time. To complete the calibration and evaluation, the Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy Sciences (IECAS) built a test site at Inner Mongolia, and deployed active reflectors (ARs) and trihedral corner reflectors (CRs) to solve and evaluate the hardware distortion. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the product accuracy of GF-3 has not been comprehensively evaluated in any open publication. The remote sensing community urgently requires a detailed report about the product accuracy and stability, before any subsequent application. From June to August of 2017, IECAS begun its second round ground campaign and deployed 10 CRs to evaluate product distortions. In this paper, we exploit Inner Mongolia CRs to investigate polarimetric and radiometric accuracy of QPSI I Stripmap. Although some CRs found fall into AR side lobe, the rest CRs enable us to preliminarily evaluate the accuracy of some special imaging beams. In the experimental part, the image of July 6, 2017 was checked by 5 trihedral CRs and the integration estimation method demonstrated the crosstalk varying from -42.65 to -32.74 dB, and the channel imbalance varying from -0.21 to 0.47 with phase error from -2.4 to 0.2 degree. Comparing with the theoretical radar cross-section of 1.235 m trihedral CR, i.e. 35 dB, the radiometric error varies about 0.20 ± 0.29 dB in HH channel and 0.40 ± 0.20 dB in VV channel.

Polarimetric signatures of sea ice in the Greenland Sea

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning; Pedersen, Leif Toudal

1995-01-01

Polarimetric SAR data of sea ice have been acquired by the Danish polarimetric SAR (EMISAR) during a mission at the Greenland Sea in August 1994. Video recordings from a low-altitude acquisition have been used for interpretation of the SAR data. Also, ERS-1 SAR data and NOAA AVHRR-data have been...

Microphysical Properties of Frozen Particles Inferred from Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI) Polarimetric Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Jie; Wu, Dongliang

2017-01-01

Scattering differences induced by frozen particle microphysical properties are investigated, using the vertically (V) and horizontally (H) polarized radiances from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI) 89 and 166GHz channels. It is the first study on global frozen particle microphysical properties that uses the dual-frequency microwave polarimetric signals. From the ice cloud scenes identified by the 183.3 3GHz channel brightness temperature (TB), we find that the scatterings of frozen particles are highly polarized with V-H polarimetric differences (PD) being positive throughout the tropics and the winter hemisphere mid-latitude jet regions, including PDs from the GMI 89 and 166GHz TBs, as well as the PD at 640GHz from the ER-2 Compact Scanning Submillimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSSIR) during the TC4 campaign. Large polarization dominantly occurs mostly near convective outflow region (i.e., anvils or stratiform precipitation), while the polarization signal is small inside deep convective cores as well as at the remote cirrus region. Neglecting the polarimetric signal would result in as large as 30 error in ice water path retrievals. There is a universal bell-curve in the PD TB relationship, where the PD amplitude peaks at 10K for all three channels in the tropics and increases slightly with latitude. Moreover, the 166GHz PD tends to increase in the case where a melting layer is beneath the frozen particles aloft in the atmosphere, while 89GHz PD is less sensitive than 166GHz to the melting layer. This property creates a unique PD feature for the identification of the melting layer and stratiform rain with passive sensors. Horizontally oriented non-spherical frozen particles are thought to produce the observed PD because of different ice scattering properties in the V and H polarizations. On the other hand, changes in the ice microphysical habitats or orientation due to turbulence mixing can also lead to a reduced PD in the deep

Assessing the impact of the Kuroshio Current on vertical cloud structure using CloudSat data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Yamauchi

2018-06-01

Full Text Available This study analyzed CloudSat satellite data to determine how the warm ocean Kuroshio Current affects the vertical structure of clouds. Rainfall intensity around the middle troposphere (6 km in height over the Kuroshio was greater than that over surrounding areas. The drizzle clouds over the Kuroshio have a higher frequency of occurrence of geometrically thin (0.5–3 km clouds and thicker (7–10 km clouds compared to those around the Kuroshio. Moreover, the frequency of occurrence of precipitating clouds with a geometric thickness of 7 to 10 km increased over the Kuroshio. Stronger updrafts over the Kuroshio maintain large droplets higher in the upper part of the cloud layer, and the maximum radar reflectivity within a cloud layer in non-precipitating and drizzle clouds over the Kuroshio is higher than that around the Kuroshio.

Observations and modeling of fog by cloud radar and optical sensors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Li, Y.; Hoogeboom, P.; Russchenberg, H.

2014-01-01

Fog is a significant factor affecting the public traffic because visibility is reduced to a large extent. Therefore the determination of optical visibility in fog from radar instruments has received much interest. To observe fog with radar, high frequency bands (millimeter waves) have the best

Urban-area extraction from polarimetric SAR image using combination of target decomposition and orientation angle

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Bin; Lu, Da; Wu, Zhilu; Qiao, Zhijun G.

2016-05-01

The results of model-based target decomposition are the main features used to discriminate urban and non-urban area in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) application. Traditional urban-area extraction methods based on modelbased target decomposition usually misclassified ground-trunk structure as urban-area or misclassified rotated urbanarea as forest. This paper introduces another feature named orientation angle to improve urban-area extraction scheme for the accurate mapping in urban by PolSAR image. The proposed method takes randomness of orientation angle into account for restriction of urban area first and, subsequently, implements rotation angle to improve results that oriented urban areas are recognized as double-bounce objects from volume scattering. ESAR L-band PolSAR data of the Oberpfaffenhofen Test Site Area was used to validate the proposed algorithm.

Statistical problems with weather-radar images, I: Clutter identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fernandez-Duran, Juan-Jose; Upton, Graham

2003-01-01

A Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedure is presented for the identification of clutter in weather-radar images. The key attributes of the image are the spatial coherence of the areas of clutter (noise) and cloud and the high spatial autocorrelation of the values in areas of cloud. A form of simulated annealing provides the possibility of fast clutter removal

Observation of snowfall with a low-power FM-CW K-band radar (Micro Rain Radar)

Science.gov (United States)

Kneifel, Stefan; Maahn, Maximilian; Peters, Gerhard; Simmer, Clemens

2011-06-01

Quantifying snowfall intensity especially under arctic conditions is a challenge because wind and snow drift deteriorate estimates obtained from both ground-based gauges and disdrometers. Ground-based remote sensing with active instruments might be a solution because they can measure well above drifting snow and do not suffer from flow distortions by the instrument. Clear disadvantages are, however, the dependency of e.g. radar returns on snow habit which might lead to similar large uncertainties. Moreover, high sensitivity radars are still far too costly to operate in a network and under harsh conditions. In this paper we compare returns from a low-cost, low-power vertically pointing FM-CW radar (Micro Rain Radar, MRR) operating at 24.1 GHz with returns from a 35.5 GHz cloud radar (MIRA36) for dry snowfall during a 6-month observation period at an Alpine station (Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus, UFS) at 2,650 m height above sea level. The goal was to quantify the potential and limitations of the MRR in relation to what is achievable by a cloud radar. The operational MRR procedures to derive standard radar variables like effective reflectivity factor ( Z e) or the mean Doppler velocity ( W) had to be modified for snowfall since the MRR was originally designed for rain observations. Since the radar returns from snowfall are weaker than from comparable rainfall, the behavior of the MRR close to its detection threshold has been analyzed and a method is proposed to quantify the noise level of the MRR based on clear sky observations. By converting the resulting MRR- Z e into 35.5 GHz equivalent Z e values, a remaining difference below 1 dBz with slightly higher values close to the noise threshold could be obtained. Due to the much higher sensitivity of MIRA36, the transition of the MRR from the true signal to noise can be observed, which agrees well with the independent clear sky noise estimate. The mean Doppler velocity differences between both radars

Mapping the Upper Subsurface of MARS Using Radar Polarimetry

Science.gov (United States)

Carter, L. M.; Rincon, R.; Berkoski, L.

2012-01-01

Future human exploration of Mars will require detailed knowledge of the surface and upper several meters of the subsurface in potential landing sites. Likewise, many of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey science goals, such as understanding the history of Mars climate change, determining how the surface was altered through processes like volcanism and fluvial activity, and locating regions that may have been hospitable to life in the past, would be significantly advanced through mapping of the upper meters of the surface. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is the only remote sensing technique capable of penetrating through meters of material and imaging buried surfaces at high (meters to tens-of-meters) spatial resolution. SAR is capable of mapping the boundaries of buried units and radar polarimetry can provide quantitative information about the roughness of surface and subsurface units, depth of burial of stratigraphic units, and density of materials. Orbital SAR systems can obtain broad coverage at a spatial scale relevant to human and robotic surface operations. A polarimetric SAR system would greatly increase the safety and utility of future landed systems including sample caching.

Monitoring of Damage in Sunflower and Maize Parcels Using Radar and Optical Time Series Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

György Surek

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to monitor the temporal behaviour of geometrical structural change of cropland affected by four different types of damage: weed infection, Western Corn Rootworm (WCR, storm damage, and drought by time series of different type of optical and quad-pol RADARSAT2 data. Based on our results it is established that ragweed infection in sunflower can be well identified by evaluation of radar (mid-June and optical (mid-August satellite images. Effect of drought in sunflower is well recognizable by spectral indices derived from optical as well as “I”-component of Shannon entropy (SEI from radar satellite images acquired during the first decade of July. Evaluation of radar and optical satellite images acquired between the last decade of July and mid-August proven to be the most efficient for detecting damages in maize fields caused by either by WCR or storm. Components of Shannon entropy are proven to have significant role in identification. Our project demonstrates the potential in integrated usage of polarimetric radar and optical satellite images for monitoring several types of agricultural damage.

REMOVAL OF SPECTRO-POLARIMETRIC FRINGES BY TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERN RECOGNITION

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Casini, R.; Judge, P. G.; Schad, T. A.

2012-01-01

We present a pattern-recognition-based approach to the problem of the removal of polarized fringes from spectro-polarimetric data. We demonstrate that two-dimensional principal component analysis can be trained on a given spectro-polarimetric map in order to identify and isolate fringe structures from the spectra. This allows us, in principle, to reconstruct the data without the fringe component, providing an effective and clean solution to the problem. The results presented in this paper point in the direction of revising the way that science and calibration data should be planned for a typical spectro-polarimetric observing run.

Automated invariant alignment to improve canonical variates in image fusion of satellite and weather radar data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestergaard, Jacob Schack; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg

2013-01-01

Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) maximizes correlation between two sets of multivariate data. We applied CCA to multivariate satellite data and univariate radar data in order to produce a subspace descriptive of heavily precipitating clouds. A misalignment, inherent to the nature of the two...... data sets, was observed, corrupting the subspace. A method for aligning the two data sets is proposed, in order to overcome this issue and render a useful subspace projection. The observed corruption of the subspace gives rise to the hypothesis that the optimal correspondence, between a heavily...... precipitating cloud in the radar data and the associated cloud top registered in the satellite data, is found by a scale, rotation and translation invariant transformation together with a temporal displacement. The method starts by determining a conformal transformation of the radar data at the time of maximum...

Precipitation evidences on X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery: an approach for quantitative detection and estimation

Science.gov (United States)

Mori, Saverio; Marzano, Frank S.; Montopoli, Mario; Pulvirenti, Luca; Pierdicca, Nazzareno

2017-04-01

Spaceborne synthetic aperture radars (SARs) operating at L-band and above are nowadays a well-established tool for Earth remote sensing; among the numerous civil applications we can indicate flood areas detection and monitoring, earthquakes analysis, digital elevation model production, land use monitoring and classification. Appealing characteristics of this kind of instruments is the high spatial resolution ensured in almost all-weather conditions and with a reasonable duty cycle and coverage. This result has achieved by the by the most recent generation of SAR missions, which moreover allow polarimetric observation of the target. Nevertheless, atmospheric clouds, in particular the precipitating ones, can significantly affect the signal backscattered from the ground surface (e.g. Ferrazzoli and Schiavon, 1997), on both amplitude and phase, with effects increasing with the operating frequency. In this respect, proofs are given by several recent works (e.g. Marzano et al., 2010, Baldini et al., 2014) using X-Band SAR data by COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) and TerraSAR-X (TSX) missions. On the other hand, this sensitivity open interesting perspectives towards the SAR observation, and eventually quantification, of precipitations. In this respect, a proposal approach for X-SARs precipitation maps production and cloud masking arise from our work. Cloud masking allows detection of precipitation compromised areas. Respect precipitation maps, satellite X-SARs offer the unique possibility to ingest within flood forecasting model precipitation data at the catchment scale. This aspect is particularly innovative, even if work has been done the late years, and some aspects need to still address. Our developed processing framework allows, within the cloud masking stage, distinguishing flooded areas, precipitating clouds together with permanent water bodies, all appearing dark in the SAR image. The procedure is mainly based on image segmentation techniques and fuzzy logic (e.g. Pulvirenti et

Aerosols, clouds, and precipitation in the North Atlantic trades observed during the Barbados aerosol cloud experiment – Part 1: Distributions and variability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Jung

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Shallow marine cumulus clouds are by far the most frequently observed cloud type over the Earth's oceans; but they are poorly understood and have not been investigated as extensively as stratocumulus clouds. This study describes and discusses the properties and variations of aerosol, cloud, and precipitation associated with shallow marine cumulus clouds observed in the North Atlantic trades during a field campaign (Barbados Aerosol Cloud Experiment- BACEX, March–April 2010, which took place off Barbados where African dust periodically affects the region. The principal observing platform was the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS Twin Otter (TO research aircraft, which was equipped with standard meteorological instruments, a zenith pointing cloud radar and probes that measured aerosol, cloud, and precipitation characteristics.The temporal variation and vertical distribution of aerosols observed from the 15 flights, which included the most intense African dust event during all of 2010 in Barbados, showed a wide range of aerosol conditions. During dusty periods, aerosol concentrations increased substantially in the size range between 0.5 and 10 µm (diameter, particles that are large enough to be effective giant cloud condensation nuclei (CCN. The 10-day back trajectories showed three distinct air masses with distinct vertical structures associated with air masses originating in the Atlantic (typical maritime air mass with relatively low aerosol concentrations in the marine boundary layer, Africa (Saharan air layer, and mid-latitudes (continental pollution plumes. Despite the large differences in the total mass loading and the origin of the aerosols, the overall shapes of the aerosol particle size distributions were consistent, with the exception of the transition period.The TO was able to sample many clouds at various phases of growth. Maximum cloud depth observed was less than ∼ 3 km, while most

NASA 3D Models: CloudSat

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Launched in April 2006, CloudSat monitors the state of the Earth’s atmosphere and weather with a sophisticated radar system. The instrument, jointly developed with...

HF propagation results from the Metal Oxide Space Cloud (MOSC) experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Joshi, Dev; Groves, Keith M.; McNeil, William; Carrano, Charles; Caton, Ronald G.; Parris, Richard T.; Pederson, Todd R.; Cannon, Paul S.; Angling, Matthew; Jackson-Booth, Natasha

2017-06-01

With support from the NASA sounding rocket program, the Air Force Research Laboratory launched two sounding rockets in the Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands in May 2013 known as the Metal Oxide Space Cloud experiment. The rockets released samarium metal vapor at preselected altitudes in the lower F region that ionized forming a plasma cloud. Data from Advanced Research Project Agency Long-range Tracking and Identification Radar incoherent scatter radar and high-frequency (HF) radio links have been analyzed to understand the impacts of the artificial ionization on radio wave propagation. The HF radio wave ray-tracing toolbox PHaRLAP along with ionospheric models constrained by electron density profiles measured with the ALTAIR radar have been used to successfully model the effects of the cloud on HF propagation. Up to three new propagation paths were created by the artificial plasma injections. Observations and modeling confirm that the small amounts of ionized material injected in the lower F region resulted in significant changes to the natural HF propagation environment.

Verifying Air Force Weather Passive Satellite Derived Cloud Analysis Products

Science.gov (United States)

Nobis, T. E.

2017-12-01

Air Force Weather (AFW) has developed an hourly World-Wide Merged Cloud Analysis (WWMCA) using imager data from 16 geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites. The analysis product contains information on cloud fraction, height, type and various optical properties including optical depth and integrated water path. All of these products are derived using a suite of algorithms which rely exclusively on passively sensed data from short, mid and long wave imager data. The system integrates satellites with a wide-range of capabilities, from the relatively simple two-channel OLS imager to the 16 channel ABI/AHI to create a seamless global analysis in real time. Over the last couple of years, AFW has started utilizing independent verification data from active sensed cloud measurements to better understand the performance limitations of the WWMCA. Sources utilized include space based lidars (CALIPSO, CATS) and radar (CloudSat) as well as ground based lidars from the Department of Energy ARM sites and several European cloud radars. This work will present findings from our efforts to compare active and passive sensed cloud information including comparison techniques/limitations as well as performance of the passive derived cloud information against the active.

Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey. II. UV/optical study of cloud-to-cloud variations of dust in the diffuse ISM

Science.gov (United States)

Siebenmorgen, R.; Voshchinnikov, N. V.; Bagnulo, S.; Cox, N. L. J.; Cami, J.; Peest, C.

2018-03-01

It is well known that the dust properties of the diffuse interstellar medium exhibit variations towards different sight-lines on a large scale. We have investigated the variability of the dust characteristics on a small scale, and from cloud-to-cloud. We use low-resolution spectro-polarimetric data obtained in the context of the Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey (LIPS) towards 59 sight-lines in the Southern Hemisphere, and we fit these data using a dust model composed of silicate and carbon particles with sizes from the molecular to the sub-micrometre domain. Large (≥6 nm) silicates of prolate shape account for the observed polarisation. For 32 sight-lines we complement our data set with UVES archive high-resolution spectra, which enable us to establish the presence of single-cloud or multiple-clouds towards individual sight-lines. We find that the majority of these 35 sight-lines intersect two or more clouds, while eight of them are dominated by a single absorbing cloud. We confirm several correlations between extinction and parameters of the Serkowski law with dust parameters, but we also find previously undetected correlations between these parameters that are valid only in single-cloud sight-lines. We find that interstellar polarisation from multiple-clouds is smaller than from single-cloud sight-lines, showing that the presence of a second or more clouds depolarises the incoming radiation. We find large variations of the dust characteristics from cloud-to-cloud. However, when we average a sufficiently large number of clouds in single-cloud or multiple-cloud sight-lines, we always retrieve similar mean dust parameters. The typical dust abundances of the single-cloud cases are [C]/[H] = 92 ppm and [Si]/[H] = 20 ppm.

Quality Control and Calibration of the Dual-Polarization Radar at Kwajalein, RMI

Science.gov (United States)

Marks, David A.; Wolff, David B.; Carey, Lawrence D.; Tokay, Ali

2010-01-01

Weather radars, recording information about precipitation around the globe, will soon be significantly upgraded. Most of today s weather radars transmit and receive microwave energy with horizontal orientation only, but upgraded systems have the capability to send and receive both horizontally and vertically oriented waves. These enhanced "dual-polarimetric" (DP) radars peer into precipitation and provide information on the size, shape, phase (liquid / frozen), and concentration of the falling particles (termed hydrometeors). This information is valuable for improved rain rate estimates, and for providing data on the release and absorption of heat in the atmosphere from condensation and evaporation (phase changes). The heating profiles in the atmosphere influence global circulation, and are a vital component in studies of Earth s changing climate. However, to provide the most accurate interpretation of radar data, the radar must be properly calibrated and data must be quality controlled (cleaned) to remove non-precipitation artifacts; both of which are challenging tasks for today s weather radar. The DP capability maximizes performance of these procedures using properties of the observed precipitation. In a notable paper published in 2005, scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) at the University of Oklahoma developed a method to calibrate radars using statistically averaged DP measurements within light rain. An additional publication by one of the same scientists at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma introduced several techniques to perform quality control of radar data using DP measurements. Following their lead, the Topical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Satellite Validation Office at NASA s Goddard Space Flight Center has fine-tuned these methods for specific application to the weather radar at Kwajalein Island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, approximately 2100 miles

Integrated cloud-aerosol-radiation product using CERES, MODIS, CALIPSO, and CloudSat data

Science.gov (United States)

Sun-Mack, Sunny; Minnis, Patrick; Chen, Yan; Gibson, Sharon; Yi, Yuhong; Trepte, Qing; Wielicki, Bruce; Kato, Seiji; Winker, Dave; Stephens, Graeme; Partain, Philip

2007-10-01

This paper documents the development of the first integrated data set of global vertical profiles of clouds, aerosols, and radiation using the combined NASA A-Train data from the Aqua Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), and CloudSat. As part of this effort, cloud data from the CALIPSO lidar and the CloudSat radar are merged with the integrated column cloud properties from the CERES-MODIS analyses. The active and passive datasets are compared to determine commonalities and differences in order to facilitate the development of a 3-dimensional cloud and aerosol dataset that will then be integrated into the CERES broadband radiance footprint. Preliminary results from the comparisons for April 2007 reveal that the CERES-MODIS global cloud amounts are, on average, 0.14 less and 0.15 greater than those from CALIPSO and CloudSat, respectively. These new data will provide unprecedented ability to test and improve global cloud and aerosol models, to investigate aerosol direct and indirect radiative forcing, and to validate the accuracy of global aerosol, cloud, and radiation data sets especially in polar regions and for multi-layered cloud conditions.

Microphysical and Radiative Characteristics of Convective Clouds during COHMEX.

Science.gov (United States)

Fulton, Richard; Heymsfield, Gerald M.

1991-01-01

The use of passive remote microwave radiance measurements above cloud tops for rainrate estimation is complicated by the complex nature of cloud microphysics. The knowledge of the microphysical structure of clouds, specifically the hydrometeor types, shapes, sizes, and their vertical distribution, is important because radiative emission and scattering effects are dependent upon the hydrometeor distribution. This paper has two purposes: first, to document the structure and evolution of two strong thunderstorms in Alabama using radar multiparameter data; and second, to relate the inferred microphysics to the resulting upwelling microwave radiance observed concurrently by high altitude aircraft. These measurements were collected during the COHMEX field program in the summer of 1986. The radar analysis includes a description of the parameters reflectivity Z, differential reflectivity ZDR, linear depolarization ratio LDR, and hail signal HS for two thunderstorm cases on 11 July 1986. The simultaneous aircraft data includes passive microwave brightness temperature (TB) measurements at four frequencies ranging from 18 to 183 GHz as well as visible and infrared data.The remote radar observations reveal the existence of large ice particles within the storms which is likely to have caused the observed low microwave brightness temperatures. By relating the evolution of the radar measureables to the microwave TB's it has been found that knowledge of the storm microphysics and its evolution is important to adequately understand the microwave TB's.

Aerosol Retrieval Sensitivity and Error Analysis for the Cloud and Aerosol Polarimetric Imager on Board TanSat: The Effect of Multi-Angle Measurement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xi Chen

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Aerosol scattering is an important source of error in CO2 retrievals from satellite. This paper presents an analysis of aerosol information content from the Cloud and Aerosol Polarimetric Imager (CAPI onboard the Chinese Carbon Dioxide Observation Satellite (TanSat to be launched in 2016. Based on optimal estimation theory, aerosol information content is quantified from radiance and polarization observed by CAPI in terms of the degrees of freedom for the signal (DFS. A linearized vector radiative transfer model is used with a linearized Mie code to simulate observation and sensitivity (or Jacobians with respect to aerosol parameters. In satellite nadir mode, the DFS for aerosol optical depth is the largest, but for mode radius, it is only 0.55. Observation geometry is found to affect aerosol DFS based on the aerosol scattering phase function from the comparison between different viewing zenith angles or solar zenith angles. When TanSat is operated in target mode, we note that multi-angle retrieval represented by three along-track measurements provides additional 0.31 DFS on average, mainly from mode radius. When adding another two measurements, the a posteriori error decreases by another 2%–6%. The correlation coefficients between retrieved parameters show that aerosol is strongly correlated with surface reflectance, but multi-angle retrieval can weaken this correlation.

ACCELERATION OF TOPOGRAPHIC MAP PRODUCTION USING SEMI-AUTOMATIC DTM FROM DSM RADAR DATA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Rizaldy

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Badan Informasi Geospasial (BIG is government institution in Indonesia which is responsible to provide Topographic Map at several map scale. For medium map scale, e.g. 1:25.000 or 1:50.000, DSM from Radar data is very good solution since Radar is able to penetrate cloud that usually covering tropical area in Indonesia. DSM Radar is produced using Radargrammetry and Interferrometry technique. The conventional method of DTM production is using “stereo-mate”, the stereo image created from DSM Radar and ORRI (Ortho Rectified Radar Image, and human operator will digitizing masspoint and breakline manually using digital stereoplotter workstation. This technique is accurate but very costly and time consuming, also needs large resource of human operator. Since DSMs are already generated, it is possible to filter DSM to DTM using several techniques. This paper will study the possibility of DSM to DTM filtering using technique that usually used in point cloud LIDAR filtering. Accuracy of this method will also be calculated using enough numbers of check points. If the accuracy meets the requirement, this method is very potential to accelerate the production of Topographic Map in Indonesia.

Polarization of seven MBM clouds at high Galactic latitude

Science.gov (United States)

Neha, S.; Maheswar, G.; Soam, A.; Lee, C. W.

2018-06-01

We made R-band polarization measurements of 234 stars towards the direction of the MBM 33-39 cloud complex. The distance of the MBM 33-39 complex was determined as 120 ± 10 pc using polarization results and near-infrared photometry from the 2MASS survey. The magnetic field geometry of the individual clouds inferred from our polarimetric results reveals that the field lines are in general consistent with the global magnetic field geometry of the region obtained from previous studies. This implies that the clouds in the complex are permeated by the interstellar magnetic field. Multi-wavelength polarization measurements of a few stars projected on to the complex suggest that the size of the dust grains in these clouds is similar to those found in the normal interstellar medium of the Milky Way. We studied a possible formation scenario of the MBM 33-39 complex by combining the polarization results from our study with those from the literature and by identifying the distribution of ionized, atomic and molecular (dust) components of material in the region.

ASTEROID POLARIMETRIC DATABASE V6.0

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Asteroid Polarimetric Database (APD) is a collection of asteroid polarimetry results compiled by D.F. Lupishko and S.V. Vasiliev of Karazin Kharkiv National...

Polarimetric studies of polyethylene terephtalate flexible substrates

Science.gov (United States)

Stchakovsky, M.; Garcia-Caurel, E.; Warenghem, M.

2008-12-01

Polymer sheets are currently used worldwide in a wide range of applications. The manufacturing process of these sheets involves extruding machines that stretch the material in both lateral and longitudinal directions with respect to the machine direction, thus inducing birefringence. In most cases, the film obtained is optically biaxial. Polarimetric spectroscopy (Ellipsometry and Mueller Matrix) combined with conoscopic observation are the methods of choice to study these properties. In this work we report an analysis of commercially available polyethylene terephtalate (PET) films used as substrate for food packaging as well as for embedded electronic devices such as solar cells or flexible displays. Initial observation of these films through polarizing microscope in conoscopic mode reveals first the trace of optical axis plane with respect to the film surface and second, whether the optical axis is acute or not. This preliminary study allows optimal sample positioning for further polarimetric studies. The measurements and modelling are done in both reflection and transmission mode on several spectroscopic polarimetric setups from UV to NIR. The models give as a main result, the dielectric tensor of the film as well as its orientation with respect to the laboratory reference frame.

Constraining mass-diameter relations from hydrometeor images and cloud radar reflectivities in tropical continental and oceanic convective anvils

Science.gov (United States)

Fontaine, E.; Schwarzenboeck, A.; Delanoë, J.; Wobrock, W.; Leroy, D.; Dupuy, R.; Gourbeyre, C.; Protat, A.

2014-10-01

In this study the density of ice hydrometeors in tropical clouds is derived from a combined analysis of particle images from 2-D-array probes and associated reflectivities measured with a Doppler cloud radar on the same research aircraft. Usually, the mass-diameter m(D) relationship is formulated as a power law with two unknown coefficients (pre-factor, exponent) that need to be constrained from complementary information on hydrometeors, where absolute ice density measurement methods do not apply. Here, at first an extended theoretical study of numerous hydrometeor shapes simulated in 3-D and arbitrarily projected on a 2-D plan allowed to constrain the exponent βof the m(D) relationship from the exponent σ of the surface-diameterS(D)relationship, which is likewise written as a power law. Since S(D) always can be determined for real data from 2-D optical array probes or other particle imagers, the evolution of the m(D) exponent can be calculated. After that, the pre-factor α of m(D) is constrained from theoretical simulations of the radar reflectivities matching the measured reflectivities along the aircraft trajectory. The study was performed as part of the Megha-Tropiques satellite project, where two types of mesoscale convective systems (MCS) were investigated: (i) above the African continent and (ii) above the Indian Ocean. For the two data sets, two parameterizations are derived to calculate the vertical variability of m(D) coefficients α and β as a function of the temperature. Originally calculated (with T-matrix) and also subsequently parameterized m(D) relationships from this study are compared to other methods (from literature) of calculating m(D) in tropical convection. The significant benefit of using variable m(D) relations instead of a single m(D) relationship is demonstrated from the impact of all these m(D) relations on Z-CWC (Condensed Water Content) and Z-CWC-T-fitted parameterizations.

Detecting weather radar clutter using satellite-based nowcasting products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Thomas B.S.; Gill, Rashpal S.; Overgaard, Søren

2006-01-01

This contribution presents the initial results from experiments with detection of weather radar clutter by information fusion with satellite based nowcasting products. Previous studies using information fusion of weather radar data and first generation Meteosat imagery have shown promising results...... for the detecting and removal of clutter. Naturally, the improved spatio-temporal resolution of the Meteosat Second Generation sensors, coupled with its increased number of spectral bands, is expected to yield even better detection accuracies. Weather radar data from three C-band Doppler weather radars...... Application Facility' of EUMETSAT and is based on multispectral images from the SEVIRI sensor of the Meteosat-8 platform. Of special interest is the 'Precipitating Clouds' product, which uses the spectral information coupled with surface temperatures from Numerical Weather Predictions to assign probabilities...

CROP SPECIES RECOGNITION AND DISCRIMINATION PADDY-RICE-GROWINGFIELDS FROM REAPED-FIELDS BY THE RADAR VEGETATION INDEX (RVI OF ALOS-2/PALSAR2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y. Yamada

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The Japanese ALOS-2 satellite was launched on May 24th, 2014. It has the L-band SAR, PALSAR-2. Kim,Y. and van Zyl, J.J. proposed a kind of Radar Vegetation Index (RVI as RVI = 8 * σ0hv / (σ0hh + σ0vv + 2* σ0hv by L-band full-polarimetric radar data. Kim, Y. and Jackson, T.J., et al. applied the equation into rice and soybean by multi-frequency polarimetric scatterometer above 4.16 meters from the ground. Their report showed the L-band was the most promising wave length for estimating LAI and NDVI from RVI. The author tried to apply the analysis to the actual paddy field areas, both Inashiki region and Miyagi region in the eastern main island, “Honshu”, areas of Japan by ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 full-polarimetry data in the summer season, the main crop growing time, of 2015. Judging from conventional methods, it will be possible to discriminate paddy rice growing fields from reaped fields or the other crops growing fields by the PALSAR-2 data. But the RVI value is vaguely related to such land use or biomass at the present preliminary experiment. The continuous research by the additional PALSAR-2 full-polarimetry data should be desired.

GPM GROUND VALIDATION CHILL RADAR MC3E V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The CHILL radar data for the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) held in Oklahoma were collected while the NASA ER-2 aircraft conducted a...

Buildings and Terrain of Urban Area Point Cloud Segmentation based on PCL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Ying; Zhong, Ruofei

2014-01-01

One current problem with laser radar point data classification is building and urban terrain segmentation, this paper proposes a point cloud segmentation method base on PCL libraries. PCL is a large cross-platform open source C++ programming library, which implements a large number of point cloud related efficient data structures and generic algorithms involving point cloud retrieval, filtering, segmentation, registration, feature extraction and curved surface reconstruction, visualization, etc. Due to laser radar point cloud characteristics with large amount of data, unsymmetrical distribution, this paper proposes using the data structure of kd-tree to organize data; then using Voxel Grid filter for point cloud resampling, namely to reduce the amount of point cloud data, and at the same time keep the point cloud shape characteristic; use PCL Segmentation Module, we use a Euclidean Cluster Extraction class with Europe clustering for buildings and ground three-dimensional point cloud segmentation. The experimental results show that this method avoids the multiple copy system existing data needs, saves the program storage space through the call of PCL library method and class, shortens the program compiled time and improves the running speed of the program

Forest parameter estimation using polarimetric SAR interferometry techniques at low frequencies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Seung-Kuk

2013-01-01

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (Pol-InSAR) is an active radar remote sensing technique based on the coherent combination of both polarimetric and interferometric observables. The Pol-InSAR technique provided a step forward in quantitative forest parameter estimation. In the last decade, airborne SAR experiments evaluated the potential of Pol-InSAR techniques to estimate forest parameters (e.g., the forest height and biomass) with high accuracy over various local forest test sites. This dissertation addresses the actual status, potentials and limitations of Pol-InSAR inversion techniques for 3-D forest parameter estimations on a global scale using lower frequencies such as L- and P-band. The multi-baseline Pol-InSAR inversion technique is applied to optimize the performance with respect to the actual level of the vertical wave number and to mitigate the impact of temporal decorrelation on the Pol-InSAR forest parameter inversion. Temporal decorrelation is a critical issue for successful Pol-InSAR inversion in the case of repeat-pass Pol-InSAR data, as provided by conventional satellites or airborne SAR systems. Despite the limiting impact of temporal decorrelation in Pol-InSAR inversion, it remains a poorly understood factor in forest height inversion. Therefore, the main goal of this dissertation is to provide a quantitative estimation of the temporal decorrelation effects by using multi-baseline Pol-InSAR data. A new approach to quantify the different temporal decorrelation components is proposed and discussed. Temporal decorrelation coefficients are estimated for temporal baselines ranging from 10 minutes to 54 days and are converted to height inversion errors. In addition, the potential of Pol-InSAR forest parameter estimation techniques is addressed and projected onto future spaceborne system configurations and mission scenarios (Tandem-L and BIOMASS satellite missions at L- and P-band). The impact of the system parameters (e.g., bandwidth

Polarimetric neutron scattering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tasset, F.

2001-01-01

Polarimetric Neutron Scattering in introduced, both by, explaining methodological issues and the corresponding instrumental developments. After a short overview of neutron spin polarization and the neutron polarization 3d-vector a pictorial approach of the microscopic theory is used to show how a polarized beam interacts with lattice and magnetic Fourier components in a crystal. Examples are given of using Spherical Neutron Polarimetry (SNP) and the corresponding Cryopad polarimeter for the investigation of non-collinear magnetic structures. (R.P.)

Earth-Space Link Attenuation Estimation via Ground Radar Kdp

Science.gov (United States)

Bolen, Steven M.; Benjamin, Andrew L.; Chandrasekar, V.

2003-01-01

A method of predicting attenuation on microwave Earth/spacecraft communication links, over wide areas and under various atmospheric conditions, has been developed. In the area around the ground station locations, a nearly horizontally aimed polarimetric S-band ground radar measures the specific differential phase (Kdp) along the Earth-space path. The specific attenuation along a path of interest is then computed by use of a theoretical model of the relationship between the measured S-band specific differential phase and the specific attenuation at the frequency to be used on the communication link. The model includes effects of rain, wet ice, and other forms of precipitation. The attenuation on the path of interest is then computed by integrating the specific attenuation over the length of the path. This method can be used to determine statistics of signal degradation on Earth/spacecraft communication links. It can also be used to obtain real-time estimates of attenuation along multiple Earth/spacecraft links that are parts of a communication network operating within the radar coverage area, thereby enabling better management of the network through appropriate dynamic routing along the best combination of links.

The use of multifrequency and polarimetric SIR-C/X-SAR data in geologic studies of Bir Safsaf, Egypt

Science.gov (United States)

Schaber, G.G.; McCauley, J.F.; Breed, C.S.

1997-01-01

Bir Safsaf, within the hyperarid 'core' of the Sahara in the Western Desert of Egypt, was recognized following the SIR-A and SIR-B missions in the 1980s as one of the key localities in northeast Africa, where penetration of dry sand by radar signals delineates previously unknown, sand-buried paleodrainage valleys ('radar-rivers') of middle Tertiary to Quaternary age. The Bir Safsaf area was targeted as a focal point for further research in sand penetration and geologic mapping using the multifrequency and polarimetric SIR-C/X-SAR sensors. Analysis of the SIR-C/X-SAR data from Bir Safsaf provides important new information on the roles of multiple SAR frequency and polarimetry in portraying specific types of geologic units, materials, and structures mostly hidden from view on the ground and on Landsat TM images by a relatively thin, but extensive blanket of blow sand. Basement rock units (granitoids and gneisses) and the fractures associated with them at Bir Safsaf are shown here for the first time to be clearly delineated using C- and L-band SAR images. The detectability of most geologic features is dependent primarily on radar frequency, as shown for wind erosion patterns in bedrock at X-band (3 cm wavelength), and for geologic units and sand and clay-filled fractures in weathered crystal-line basement rocks at C-band (6 cm) and L-band (24 cm). By contrast, Quaternary paleodrainage channels are detectable at all three radar frequencies owing, among other things, to an usually thin cover of blow sand. The SIR-C/X-SAR data investigated to date enable us to make specific recommendations about the utility of certain radar sensor configurations for geologic and paleoenvironmental reconnaissance in desert regions.Analysis of the shuttle imaging radar-C/X-synthetic aperture radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) data from Bir Safsaf provides important new information on the roles of multiple SAR frequency and polarimetry in portraying specific types of geologic units, materials, and

Comparison of POLDER Cloud Phase Retrievals to Active Remote Sensors Measurements at the ARM SGP Site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Riedi, J.; Goloub, P.; Marchand, Roger T.

2001-01-01

In our present study, cloud boundaries derived from a combination of active remote sensors at the ARM SGP site are compared to POLDER cloud top phase index which is derived from polarimetric measurements using an innovative method. This approach shows the viability of the POLDER phase retrieval algorithm, and also leads to interesting results. In particular, the analysis demonstrates the sensitivity of polarization measurements to ice crystal shape and indicates that occurrence of polycrystalline ice clouds has to be taken into account in order to improve the POLDER phase retrieval algorithm accuracy. Secondly, the results show that a temperature threshold of 240 K could serve for cloud top particle phase classification. Considering the limitations of the analysis, the temperature threshold could be biased high, but not by more than about 5 degrees

Polarimetric Scattering Properties of Landslides in Forested Areas and the Dependence on the Local Incidence Angle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Takashi Shibayama

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the local incidence angle dependence of several polarimetric indices corresponding to landslides in forested areas. Landslide is deeply related to the loss of human lives and their property. Various kinds of remote sensing techniques, including aerial photography, high-resolution optical satellite imagery, LiDAR and SAR interferometry (InSAR, have been available for landslide investigations. SAR polarimetry is potentially an effective measure to investigate landslides because fully-polarimetric SAR (PolSAR data contain more information compared to conventional single- or dual-polarization SAR data. However, research on landslide recognition utilizing polarimetric SAR (PolSAR is quite limited. Polarimetric properties of landslides have not been examined quantitatively so far. Accordingly, we examined the polarimetric scattering properties of landslides by an assessment of how the decomposed scattering power components and the polarimetric correlation coefficient change with the local incidence angle. In the assessment, PolSAR data acquired from different directions with both spaceborne and airborne SARs were utilized. It was found that the surface scattering power and the polarimetric correlation coefficient of landslides significantly decrease with the local incidence angle, while these indices of surrounding forest do not. This fact leads to establishing a method of effective detection of landslide area by polarimetric information.

Space Radar Image of Maui, Hawaii

Science.gov (United States)

1994-01-01

This spaceborne radar image shows the 'Valley Island' of Maui, Hawaii. The cloud-penetrating capabilities of radar provide a rare view of many parts of the island, since the higher elevations are frequently shrouded in clouds. The light blue and yellow areas in the lowlands near the center are sugar cane fields. The three major population centers, Lahaina on the left at the western tip of island, Wailuku left of center, and Kihei in the lower center appear as small yellow, white or purple mottled areas. West Maui volcano, in the lower left, is 1800 meters high (5900 feet) and is considered extinct. The entire eastern half of the island consists of East Maui volcano, which rises to an elevation of 3200 meters (10,500 feet) and features a spectacular crater called Haleakala at its summit. Haleakala Crater was produced by erosion during previous ice ages rather than by volcanic activity, although relatively recent small eruptions have produced the numerous volcanic cones and lava flows that can be seen on the floor of the crater. The most recent eruption took place near the coast at the southwestern end of East Maui volcano in the late 1700s. Such a time frame indicates that East Maui should be considered a dormant, rather than an extinct volcano. A new eruption is therefore possible in the next few hundred years. The multi-wavelength capability of the SIR-C radar also permits differences in the vegetation cover on the middle flanks of East Maui to be identified. Rain forests appear in yellow, while grassland is shown in dark green, pink and blue. Radar images such as this one are being used by scientists to understand volcanic processes and to assess potential threats that future activity may pose to local populations. This image was acquired by Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) onboard the space shuttle Endeavour on April 16, 1994. The image is 73.7 kilometers by 48.7 kilometers (45.7 miles by 30.2 miles) and is centered at 20

New Processing of Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) Data

Science.gov (United States)

Meyer, F. J.; Gracheva, V.; Arko, S. A.; Labelle-Hamer, A. L.

2017-12-01

The Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) was a radar system, which successfully operated on two separate shuttle missions in April and October 1994. During these two missions, a total of 143 hours of radar data were recorded. SIR-C was the first multifrequency and polarimetric spaceborne radar system, operating in dual frequency (L- and C- band) and with quad-polarization. SIR-C had a variety of different operating modes, which are innovative even from today's point of view. Depending on the mode, it was possible to acquire data with different polarizations and carrier frequency combinations. Additionally, different swaths and bandwidths could be used during the data collection and it was possible to receive data with two antennas in the along-track direction.The United States Geological Survey (USGS) distributes the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images as single-look complex (SLC) and multi-look complex (MLC) products. Unfortunately, since June 2005 the SIR-C processor has been inoperable and not repairable. All acquired SLC and MLC images were processed with a course resolution of 100 m with the goal of generating a quick look. These images are however not well suited for scientific analysis. Only a small percentage of the acquired data has been processed as full resolution SAR images and the unprocessed high resolution data cannot be processed any more at the moment.At the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) a new processor was developed to process binary SIR-C data to full resolution SAR images. ASF is planning to process the entire recoverable SIR-C archive to full resolution SLCs, MLCs and high resolution geocoded image products. ASF will make these products available to the science community through their existing data archiving and distribution system.The final paper will describe the new processor and analyze the challenges of reprocessing the SIR-C data.

Results of development and field tests of a radar-tracer system providing meteorological support to modeling hazardous technological releases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shershakov, V.M.; Zukov, G.P.; Kosykh, V.S.

2003-01-01

Full text: Radar support to systems of automated radiation monitoring requires dealing with determination of geometric characteristics of air release of radionuclides. For doing this, an air release can be labeled by chaff propagating in the air similarly to particles of radioactive substance. Then, a chaff suspension can be treated as a spatially distributed radar target and thus be detected by a radar. For a number of years the Science and Production Association 'Typhoon' of Roshydromet, Obninsk has been developing a radar tracer system (RTS) for meteorological support of modeling hazardous technological releases. In September -December 2002 experiments were conducted to test the RTS in field. This presentation contains preliminary results of testing this system. A total of 9 experiments pursuing different goals were carried out. Of them 6 experiments were conducted approximately 6 km south-west of Obninsk in the vicinity of the village of Potresovo. The first three experiments were aimed at working out interaction between the MR and LDU and assessing the chaff cloud observation distance. In doing this, radar information was not transmitted from the MR to the CCS. In the last three experiments radar information was transmitted to the CCS by cell communication lines using telephones Siemens S35 with in-built modems. The CCS was deployed in building 4/25 of SPA 'Typhoon'. All information received in the CCS was put an a map. Three experiments were conducted in the area of the Kursk NPP as part of preparations for training exercises near the village of Makarovka about 7 km north-west of the city of Kurchatov. In the first two experiments radar information from the MR was passed by cell communication channels to the CCS deployed in the laboratory of external radiation monitoring of the Kursk nuclear power plant. Experiment 3 was a demonstration and arranged during the emergency response exercises at the Kursk NPP. The MR was based on the site of the external

Marine target detection in quad-pol synthetic aperture radar imagery based on the relative phase of cross-polarized channels

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yunhua; Li, Huimin; Zhang, Yanmin; Guo, Lixin

2015-01-01

A focus on marine target detection in noise corrupted fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is presented. The property of the relative phase between two cross-polarized channels reveals that the relative phases evaluated within sea surface area or noise corrupted area are widely spread phase angle region [-π,π] due to decorrelation effect; however, the relative phases are concentrated to zero and ±π for real target and its first-order azimuth ambiguities (FOAAs), respectively. Exploiting this physical behavior, the reciprocal of the mean square value of the relative phase (RMSRP) is defined as a new parameter for target detection, and the experiments based on fully polarimetric Radarsat-2 SAR images show that the strong noise and the FOAAs can be effectively suppressed in RMSRP image. Meanwhile, validity of the new parameter for target detection is also verified by two typical Radarsat-2 SAR images, in which targets' ambiguities and strong noise are present.

Evaluation of radar imagery for geological and cartographic applications

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Gerald K.; Sheehan, Cynthia A.

1981-01-01

The House/Senate conference report on H.R. 4930 (96th Congress), the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, 1980, stated that the U.S. Geological Survey should "begin the use of side-looking airborne radar imagery for topographic and geological mapping, and geological resource surveys in promising areas, particularly Alaska." In response to this mandate, the Survey acquired radar data and began scientific studies to analyze and interpret these data. About 70 percent of the project funding was used to acquire radar imagery and to evaluate Alaskan applications. Results of these studies indicate that radar images have a unique incremental value for certain geologic and cartographic applications but that the images are best suited for use as supplemental information sources or as primary data sources in areas of persistent cloud cover.The value of radar data is greatest for geologic mapping and resource surveys, particularly for mineral and petroleum exploration, where the objective is to locate any single feature or group of features that may control the occurrences of these resources. Radar images are considered by oil and gas companies to be worth the cost of data acquisition within a limited area of active exploration.Radar images also have incremental value for geologic site studies and hazard mapping. The need in these cases is TO inventory all geologic hazards to human life, property, resources, and the environment. For other geologic applications, radar images have a relatively small incremental value over a combination of Landsat images and aerial photographs.The value of radar images for cartographic applications is minimal, except when they are used as a substitute for aerial photographs and topographic maps in persistently cloud-covered areas. If conventional data sources are not available, radar images provide useful information on terrain relief, landforms, drainage patterns, and land cover. Screen less lithography is a low

Observations of Co-variation in Cloud Properties and their Relationships with Atmospheric State

Science.gov (United States)

Sinclair, K.; van Diedenhoven, B.; Fridlind, A. M.; Arnold, T. G.; Yorks, J. E.; Heymsfield, G. M.; McFarquhar, G. M.; Um, J.

2017-12-01

Radiative properties of upper tropospheric ice clouds are generally not well represented in global and cloud models. Cloud top height, cloud thermodynamic phase, cloud optical thickness, cloud water path, particle size and ice crystal shape all serve as observational targets for models to constrain cloud properties. Trends or biases in these cloud properties could have profound effects on the climate since they affect cloud radiative properties. Better understanding of co-variation between these cloud properties and linkages with atmospheric state variables can lead to better representation of clouds in models by reducing biases in their micro- and macro-physical properties as well as their radiative properties. This will also enhance our general understanding of cloud processes. In this analysis we look at remote sensing, in situ and reanalysis data from the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS), Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), Cloud Radar System (CRS), GEOS-5 reanalysis data and GOES imagery obtained during the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) airborne campaign. The MAS, CPL and CRS were mounted on the ER-2 high-altitude aircraft during this campaign. In situ observations of ice size and shape were made aboard the DC8 and WB57 aircrafts. We explore how thermodynamic phase, ice effective radius, particle shape and radar reflectivity vary with altitude and also investigate how these observed cloud properties vary with cloud type, cloud top temperature, relative humidity and wind profiles. Observed systematic relationships are supported by physical interpretations of cloud processes and any unexpected differences are examined.

Modeling Surface Roughness to Estimate Surface Moisture Using Radarsat-2 Quad Polarimetric SAR Data

Science.gov (United States)

Nurtyawan, R.; Saepuloh, A.; Budiharto, A.; Wikantika, K.

2016-08-01

Microwave backscattering from the earth's surface depends on several parameters such as surface roughness and dielectric constant of surface materials. The two parameters related to water content and porosity are crucial for estimating soil moisture. The soil moisture is an important parameter for ecological study and also a factor to maintain energy balance of land surface and atmosphere. Direct roughness measurements to a large area require extra time and cost. Heterogeneity roughness scale for some applications such as hydrology, climate, and ecology is a problem which could lead to inaccuracies of modeling. In this study, we modeled surface roughness using Radasat-2 quad Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) data. The statistical approaches to field roughness measurements were used to generate an appropriate roughness model. This modeling uses a physical SAR approach to predicts radar backscattering coefficient in the parameter of radar configuration (wavelength, polarization, and incidence angle) and soil parameters (surface roughness and dielectric constant). Surface roughness value is calculated using a modified Campbell and Shepard model in 1996. The modification was applied by incorporating the backscattering coefficient (σ°) of quad polarization HH, HV and VV. To obtain empirical surface roughness model from SAR backscattering intensity, we used forty-five sample points from field roughness measurements. We selected paddy field in Indramayu district, West Java, Indonesia as the study area. This area was selected due to intensive decreasing of rice productivity in the Northern Coast region of West Java. Third degree polynomial is the most suitable data fitting with coefficient of determination R2 and RMSE are about 0.82 and 1.18 cm, respectively. Therefore, this model is used as basis to generate the map of surface roughness.

Plasma-based radar cross section reduction

CERN Document Server

Singh, Hema; Jha, Rakesh Mohan

2016-01-01

This book presents a comprehensive review of plasma-based stealth, covering the basics, methods, parametric analysis, and challenges towards the realization of the idea. The concealment of aircraft from radar sources, or stealth, is achieved through shaping, radar absorbing coatings, engineered materials, or plasma, etc. Plasma-based stealth is a radar cross section (RCS) reduction technique associated with the reflection and absorption of incident electromagnetic (EM) waves by the plasma layer surrounding the structure. A plasma cloud covering the aircraft may give rise to other signatures such as thermal, acoustic, infrared, or visual. Thus it is a matter of concern that the RCS reduction by plasma enhances its detectability due to other signatures. This needs a careful approach towards the plasma generation and its EM wave interaction. The book starts with the basics of EM wave interactions with plasma, briefly discuss the methods used to analyze the propagation characteristics of plasma, and its generatio...

An intercomparison of methods for solving the stochastic collection equation with a focus on cloud radar Doppler spectra in drizzling stratocumulus

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, H.; Fridlind, A. M.; Ackerman, A. S.; Kollias, P.

2017-12-01

Cloud radar Doppler spectra provide rich information for evaluating the fidelity of particle size distributions from cloud models. The intrinsic simplifications of bulk microphysics schemes generally preclude the generation of plausible Doppler spectra, unlike bin microphysics schemes, which develop particle size distributions more organically at substantial computational expense. However, bin microphysics schemes face the difficulty of numerical diffusion leading to overly rapid large drop formation, particularly while solving the stochastic collection equation (SCE). Because such numerical diffusion can cause an even greater overestimation of radar reflectivity, an accurate method for solving the SCE is essential for bin microphysics schemes to accurately simulate Doppler spectra. While several methods have been proposed to solve the SCE, here we examine those of Berry and Reinhardt (1974, BR74), Jacobson et al. (1994, J94), and Bott (2000, B00). Using a simple box model to simulate drop size distribution evolution during precipitation formation with a realistic kernel, it is shown that each method yields a converged solution as the resolution of the drop size grid increases. However, the BR74 and B00 methods yield nearly identical size distributions in time, whereas the J94 method produces consistently larger drops throughout the simulation. In contrast to an earlier study, the performance of the B00 method is found to be satisfactory; it converges at relatively low resolution and long time steps, and its computational efficiency is the best among the three methods considered here. Finally, a series of idealized stratocumulus large-eddy simulations are performed using the J94 and B00 methods. The reflectivity size distributions and Doppler spectra obtained from the different SCE solution methods are presented and compared with observations.

CloudSat 2C-ICE product update with a new Ze parameterization in lidar-only region.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Min; Mace, Gerald G; Wang, Zhien; Berry, Elizabeth

2015-12-16

The CloudSat 2C-ICE data product is derived from a synergetic ice cloud retrieval algorithm that takes as input a combination of CloudSat radar reflectivity ( Z e ) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation lidar attenuated backscatter profiles. The algorithm uses a variational method for retrieving profiles of visible extinction coefficient, ice water content, and ice particle effective radius in ice or mixed-phase clouds. Because of the nature of the measurements and to maintain consistency in the algorithm numerics, we choose to parameterize (with appropriately large specification of uncertainty) Z e and lidar attenuated backscatter in the regions of a cirrus layer where only the lidar provides data and where only the radar provides data, respectively. To improve the Z e parameterization in the lidar-only region, the relations among Z e , extinction, and temperature have been more thoroughly investigated using Atmospheric Radiation Measurement long-term millimeter cloud radar and Raman lidar measurements. This Z e parameterization provides a first-order estimation of Z e as a function extinction and temperature in the lidar-only regions of cirrus layers. The effects of this new parameterization have been evaluated for consistency using radiation closure methods where the radiative fluxes derived from retrieved cirrus profiles compare favorably with Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System measurements. Results will be made publicly available for the entire CloudSat record (since 2006) in the most recent product release known as R05.

Comparison of polarimetric cameras

Science.gov (United States)

2017-03-01

Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Budget , Paperwork Reduction Project (0704-0188...polarimetric camera, remote sensing, space systems 15. NUMBER OF PAGES 93 16. PRICE CODE 17. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF REPORT Unclassified 18...2016. Hermann Hall, Monterey, CA. The next data in Figure 37. were collected on 01 December 2016 at 1226 PST on the rooftop of the Marriot Hotel in

The variability of tropical ice cloud properties as a function of the large-scale context from ground-based radar-lidar observations over Darwin, Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Protat, A.; Delanoë, J.; May, P. T.; Haynes, J.; Jakob, C.; O'Connor, E.; Pope, M.; Wheeler, M. C.

2011-08-01

The high complexity of cloud parameterizations now held in models puts more pressure on observational studies to provide useful means to evaluate them. One approach to the problem put forth in the modelling community is to evaluate under what atmospheric conditions the parameterizations fail to simulate the cloud properties and under what conditions they do a good job. It is the ambition of this paper to characterize the variability of the statistical properties of tropical ice clouds in different tropical "regimes" recently identified in the literature to aid the development of better process-oriented parameterizations in models. For this purpose, the statistical properties of non-precipitating tropical ice clouds over Darwin, Australia are characterized using ground-based radar-lidar observations from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. The ice cloud properties analysed are the frequency of ice cloud occurrence, the morphological properties (cloud top height and thickness), and the microphysical and radiative properties (ice water content, visible extinction, effective radius, and total concentration). The variability of these tropical ice cloud properties is then studied as a function of the large-scale cloud regimes derived from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), the amplitude and phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and the large-scale atmospheric regime as derived from a long-term record of radiosonde observations over Darwin. The vertical variability of ice cloud occurrence and microphysical properties is largest in all regimes (1.5 order of magnitude for ice water content and extinction, a factor 3 in effective radius, and three orders of magnitude in concentration, typically). 98 % of ice clouds in our dataset are characterized by either a small cloud fraction (smaller than 0.3) or a very large cloud fraction (larger than 0.9). In the ice part of the troposphere three distinct layers characterized by

The occurrence of ice production in slightly supercooled Arctic stratiform clouds as observed by ground-based remote sensors at the ARM NSA site

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Damao; Wang, Zhien; Luo, Tao; Yin, Yan; Flynn, Connor

2017-03-01

Ice particle formation in slightly supercooled stratiform clouds is not well documented or understood. In this study, 4 years of combined lidar depolarization and radar reflectivity (Ze) measurements are analyzed to distinguish between cold drizzle and ice crystal formations in slightly supercooled Arctic stratiform clouds over the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program Climate Research Facility North Slope of Alaska Utqiaġvik ("Barrow") site. Ice particles are detected and statistically shown to be responsible for the strong precipitation in slightly supercooled Arctic stratiform clouds at cloud top temperatures as high as -4°C. For ice precipitating Arctic stratiform clouds, the lidar particulate linear depolarization ratio (δpar_lin) correlates well with radar Ze at each temperature range, but the δpar_lin-Ze relationship varies with temperature ranges. In addition, lidar depolarization and radar Ze observations of ice generation characteristics in Arctic stratiform clouds are consistent with laboratory-measured temperature-dependent ice growth habits.

Cloud's Center of Gravity – a compact approach to analyze convective cloud development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. Koren

2009-01-01

Full Text Available As cloud resolving models become more detailed, with higher resolution outputs, it is often complicated to isolate the physical processes that control the cloud attributes. Moreover, due to the high dimensionality and complexity of the model output, the analysis and interpretation of the results can be very complicated. Here we suggest a novel approach to convective cloud analysis that yields more insight into the physical and temporal evolution of clouds, and is compact and efficient. The different (3-D cloud attributes are weighted and projected onto a single point in space and in time, that has properties of, or similar to, the Center Of Gravity (COG. The location, magnitude and spread of this variable are followed in time. The implications of the COG approach are demonstrated for a study of aerosol effects on a warm convective cloud. We show that in addition to reducing dramatically the dimensionality of the output, such an approach often enhances the signal, adds more information, and makes the physical description of cloud evolution clearer, allowing unambiguous comparison of clouds evolving in different environmental conditions. This approach may also be useful for analysis of cloud data retrieved from surface or space-based cloud radars.

Use of the X-Band Radar to Support the Detection of In-Flight Icing Hazards by the NASA Icing Remote Sensing System

Science.gov (United States)

Serke, David J.; Politovich, Marcia K.; Reehorst, Andrew L.; Gaydos, Andrew

2009-01-01

The Alliance Icing Research Study-II (AIRS-II) field program was conducted near Montreal, Canada during the winter of 2003. The NASA Icing Remote Detection System (NIRSS) was deployed to detect in-flight icing hazards and consisted of a vertically pointing multichannel radiometer, a ceilometer and an x-band cloud radar. The radiometer was used to derive atmospheric temperature soundings and integrated liquid water, while the ceilometer and radar were used only to define cloud boundaries. The purpose of this study is to show that the radar reflectivity profiles from AIRS-II case studies could be used to provide a qualitative icing hazard.

Three-dimensional cloud characterization from paired whole-sky imaging cameras

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Allmen, M.; Kegelmeyer, W.P. Jr.

1994-01-01

Three-dimensional (3-D) cloud characterization permits the derivation of important cloud geometry properties such as fractional cloudiness, mean cloud and clear length, aspect ratio, and the morphology of cloud cover. These properties are needed as input to the hierarchical diagnosis (HD) and instantaneous radiative transfer (IRF) models, to validate sub-models for cloud occurrence and formation, and to Central Site radiative flux calculations. A full 3-D characterization will eventually require the integration of disparate Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) data sources: whole-sky imagers (WSIs), radar, satellites, ceilometers, volume-imaging lidar, and other sensors. In this paper, we demonstrate how an initial 3-D cloud property, cloud base height, can be determined from fusing paired times series of images from two whole-sky imagers

Polarimetric Imaging using Two Photoelastic Modulators

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yu; Cunningham, Thomas; Diner, David; Davis, Edgar; Sun, Chao; Hancock, Bruce; Gutt, Gary; Zan, Jason; Raouf, Nasrat

2009-01-01

A method of polarimetric imaging, now undergoing development, involves the use of two photoelastic modulators in series, driven at equal amplitude but at different frequencies. The net effect on a beam of light is to cause (1) the direction of its polarization to rotate at the average of two excitation frequencies and (2) the amplitude of its polarization to be modulated at the beat frequency (the difference between the two excitation frequencies). The resulting modulated optical light beam is made to pass through a polarizing filter and is detected at the beat frequency, which can be chosen to equal the frame rate of an electronic camera or the rate of sampling the outputs of photodetectors in an array. The method was conceived to satisfy a need to perform highly accurate polarimetric imaging, without cross-talk between polarization channels, at frame rates of the order of tens of hertz. The use of electro-optical modulators is necessitated by a need to obtain accuracy greater than that attainable by use of static polarizing filters over separate fixed detectors. For imaging, photoelastic modulators are preferable to such other electrio-optical modulators as Kerr cells and Pockels cells in that photoelastic modulators operate at lower voltages, have greater angular acceptances, and are easier to use. Prior to the conception of the present method, polarimetric imaging at frame rates of tens of hertz using photoelastic modulators was not possible because the resonance frequencies of photoelastic modulators usually lie in the range from about 20 to about 100 kHz.

Change detection in polarimetric SAR data over several time points

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Conradsen, Knut; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Skriver, Henning

2014-01-01

A test statistic for the equality of several variance-covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution is introduced. The test statistic is applied successfully to detect change in C-band EMISAR polarimetric SAR data over four time points.......A test statistic for the equality of several variance-covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution is introduced. The test statistic is applied successfully to detect change in C-band EMISAR polarimetric SAR data over four time points....

Radar and infrared remote sensing of terrain, water resources, arctic sea ice, and agriculture

Science.gov (United States)

Biggs, A. W.

1983-01-01

Radar range measurements, basic waveforms of radar systems, and radar displays are initially described. These are followed by backscatter from several types of terrain and vegetation as a function of frequency and grazing angle. Analytical models for this backscatter include the facet models of radar return, with range-angle, velocity-range, velocity-angle, range, velocity, and angular only discriminations. Several side-looking airborne radar geometries are presented. Radar images of Arctic sea ice, fresh water lake ice, cloud-covered terrain, and related areas are presented to identify applications of radar imagery. Volume scatter models are applied to radar imagery from alpine snowfields. Short pulse ice thickness radar for subsurface probes is discussed in fresh-water ice and sea ice detection. Infrared scanners, including multispectral, are described. Diffusion of cold water into a river, Arctic sea ice, power plant discharges, volcanic heat, and related areas are presented in thermal imagery. Multispectral radar and infrared imagery are discussed, with comparisons of photographic, infrared, and radar imagery of the same terrain or subjects.

Polarimetric SAR interferometry-based decomposition modelling for reliable scattering retrieval

Science.gov (United States)

Agrawal, Neeraj; Kumar, Shashi; Tolpekin, Valentyn

2016-05-01

Fully Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data is used for scattering information retrieval from single SAR resolution cell. Single SAR resolution cell may contain contribution from more than one scattering objects. Hence, single or dual polarized data does not provide all the possible scattering information. So, to overcome this problem fully Polarimetric data is used. It was observed in previous study that fully Polarimetric data of different dates provide different scattering values for same object and coefficient of determination obtained from linear regression between volume scattering and aboveground biomass (AGB) shows different values for the SAR dataset of different dates. Scattering values are important input elements for modelling of forest aboveground biomass. In this research work an approach is proposed to get reliable scattering from interferometric pair of fully Polarimetric RADARSAT-2 data. The field survey for data collection was carried out for Barkot forest during November 10th to December 5th, 2014. Stratified random sampling was used to collect field data for circumference at breast height (CBH) and tree height measurement. Field-measured AGB was compared with the volume scattering elements obtained from decomposition modelling of individual PolSAR images and PolInSAR coherency matrix. Yamaguchi 4-component decomposition was implemented to retrieve scattering elements from SAR data. PolInSAR based decomposition was the great challenge in this work and it was implemented with certain assumptions to create Hermitian coherency matrix with co-registered polarimetric interferometric pair of SAR data. Regression analysis between field-measured AGB and volume scattering element obtained from PolInSAR data showed highest (0.589) coefficient of determination. The same regression with volume scattering elements of individual SAR images showed 0.49 and 0.50 coefficients of determination for master and slave images respectively. This study recommends use of

Site Monitoring with Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite Imagery

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Canty, Morton J.; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg

2017-01-01

Based on a statistical test for the equality of polarimetric matrices following the complex Wishart distribution and a factorization of the test statistic, change analysis in a time series of multi-look polarimetric SAR data in variance-covariance or polarimetric matrix representation is carried...

Research on Full-polarization Bistatic Scattering Characteristics of Aircraft

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ai Xiaofeng

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Whole space polarimetric bistatic scattering data of full-size aircraft targets were calculated via the mature electromagnetic calculation software. The fluctuation statistics characteristic of the polarimetric bistatic Radar Cross-Section (RCS was carried out. It was found that the statistical properties of the four polarimetric types (HH, HV, VH, VV of polarimetric bistatic RCSs are nearly the same, while the monostatic main and cross polarization RCSs statistical properties were quite different from each other. The characteristics of the distribution statistic for the monostatic and bistatic polarization ratio were carried out. Moreover, it was found that the cross-main polarization ratios were quite different, while the main polarization ratios were similar. The statistical results provide a theoretical reference for fully polarimetric bistatic radar aircraft target detection experiments.

Impact of Reducing Polarimetric SAR Input on the Uncertainty of Crop Classifications Based on the Random Forests Algorithm

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Loosvelt, Lien; Peters, Jan; Skriver, Henning

2012-01-01

Although the use of multidate polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data for highly accurate land cover classification has been acknowledged in the literature, the high dimensionality of the data set remains a major issue. This study presents two different strategies to reduce the number...... acquired by the Danish EMISAR on four dates within the period April to July in 1998. The predictive capacity of each feature is analyzed by the importance score generated by random forests (RF). Results show that according to the variation in importance score over time, a distinction can be made between...... general and specific features for crop classification. Based on the importance ranking, features are gradually removed from the single-date data sets in order to construct several multidate data sets with decreasing dimensionality. In the accuracy-oriented and efficiency-oriented reduction, the input...

Radar image and data fusion for natural hazards characterisation

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Zhong; Dzurisin, Daniel; Jung, Hyung-Sup; Zhang, Jixian; Zhang, Yonghong

2010-01-01

Fusion of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images through interferometric, polarimetric and tomographic processing provides an all - weather imaging capability to characterise and monitor various natural hazards. This article outlines interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) processing and products and their utility for natural hazards characterisation, provides an overview of the techniques and applications related to fusion of SAR/InSAR images with optical and other images and highlights the emerging SAR fusion technologies. In addition to providing precise land - surface digital elevation maps, SAR - derived imaging products can map millimetre - scale elevation changes driven by volcanic, seismic and hydrogeologic processes, by landslides and wildfires and other natural hazards. With products derived from the fusion of SAR and other images, scientists can monitor the progress of flooding, estimate water storage changes in wetlands for improved hydrological modelling predictions and assessments of future flood impacts and map vegetation structure on a global scale and monitor its changes due to such processes as fire, volcanic eruption and deforestation. With the availability of SAR images in near real - time from multiple satellites in the near future, the fusion of SAR images with other images and data is playing an increasingly important role in understanding and forecasting natural hazards.

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT AND SPECKLE REDUCTION OF FULL POLARIMETRIC SAR DATA BY GAUSSIAN MARKOV RANDOM FIELD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Mahdian

2013-09-01

Full Text Available In recent years, the use of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR data in different applications dramatically has been increased. In SAR imagery an interference phenomenon with random behavior exists which is called speckle noise. The interpretation of data encounters some troubles due to the presence of speckle which can be considered as a multiplicative noise affecting all coherent imaging systems. Indeed, speckle degrade radiometric resolution of PolSAR images, therefore it is needful to perform speckle filtering on the SAR data type. Markov Random Field (MRF has proven to be a powerful method for drawing out eliciting contextual information from remotely sensed images. In the present paper, a probability density function (PDF, which is fitted well with the PolSAR data based on the goodness-of-fit test, is first obtained for the pixel-wise analysis. Then the contextual smoothing is achieved with the MRF method. This novel speckle reduction method combines an advanced statistical distribution with spatial contextual information for PolSAR data. These two parts of information are combined based on weighted summation of pixel-wise and contextual models. This approach not only preserves edge information in the images, but also improves signal-to-noise ratio of the results. The method maintains the mean value of original signal in the homogenous areas and preserves the edges of features in the heterogeneous regions. Experiments on real medium resolution ALOS data from Tehran, and also high resolution full polarimetric SAR data over the Oberpfaffenhofen test-site in Germany, demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm compared with well-known despeckling methods.

A comparative analysis of extended water cloud model and backscatter modelling for above-ground biomass assessment in Corbett Tiger Reserve

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, Yogesh; Singh, Sarnam; Chatterjee, R. S.; Trivedi, Mukul

2016-04-01

Forest biomass acts as a backbone in regulating the climate by storing carbon within itself. Thus the assessment of forest biomass is crucial in understanding the dynamics of the environment. Traditionally the destructive methods were adopted for the assessment of biomass which were further advanced to the non-destructive methods. The allometric equations developed by destructive methods were further used in non-destructive methods for the assessment, but they were mostly applied for woody/commercial timber species. However now days Remote Sensing data are primarily used for the biomass geospatial pattern assessment. The Optical Remote Sensing data (Landsat8, LISS III, etc.) are being used very successfully for the estimation of above ground biomass (AGB). However optical data is not suitable for all atmospheric/environmental conditions, because it can't penetrate through clouds and haze. Thus Radar data is one of the alternate possible ways to acquire data in all-weather conditions irrespective of weather and light. The paper examines the potential of ALOS PALSAR L-band dual polarisation data for the estimation of AGB in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) covering an area of 889 km2. The main focus of this study is to explore the accuracy of Polarimetric Scattering Model (Extended Water Cloud Model (EWCM) with respect to Backscatter model in the assessment of AGB. The parameters of the EWCM were estimated using the decomposition components (Raney Decomposition) and the plot level information. The above ground biomass in the CTR ranges from 9.6 t/ha to 322.6 t/ha.

Polarimetric Emission of Rain Events: Simulation and Experimental Results at X-Band

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nuria Duffo

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Accurate models are used today for infrared and microwave satellite radiance simulations of the first two Stokes elements in the physical retrieval, data assimilation etc. of surface and atmospheric parameters. Although in the past a number of theoretical and experimental works have studied the polarimetric emission of some natural surfaces, specially the sea surface roughened by the wind (Windsat mission, very limited studies have been conducted on the polarimetric emission of rain cells or other natural surfaces. In this work, the polarimetric emission (four Stokes elements of a rain cell is computed using the polarimetric radiative transfer equation assuming that raindrops are described by Pruppacher-Pitter shapes and that their size distribution follows the Laws-Parsons law. The Boundary Element Method (BEM is used to compute the exact bistatic scattering coefficients for each raindrop shape and different canting angles. Numerical results are compared to the Rayleigh or Mie scattering coefficients, and to Oguchi’s ones, showing that above 1-2 mm raindrop size the exact formulation is required to model properly the scattering. Simulation results using BEM are then compared to the experimental data gathered with a X-band polarimetric radiometer. It is found that the depolarization of the radiation caused by the scattering of non-spherical raindrops induces a non-zero third Stokes parameter, and the differential phase of the scattering coefficients induces a non-zero fourth Stokes parameter.

Stochastic simulation experiment to assess radar rainfall retrieval uncertainties associated with attenuation and its correction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Uijlenhoet

2008-03-01

Full Text Available As rainfall constitutes the main source of water for the terrestrial hydrological processes, accurate and reliable measurement and prediction of its spatial and temporal distribution over a wide range of scales is an important goal for hydrology. We investigate the potential of ground-based weather radar to provide such measurements through a theoretical analysis of some of the associated observation uncertainties. A stochastic model of range profiles of raindrop size distributions is employed in a Monte Carlo simulation experiment to investigate the rainfall retrieval uncertainties associated with weather radars operating at X-, C-, and S-band. We focus in particular on the errors and uncertainties associated with rain-induced signal attenuation and its correction for incoherent, non-polarimetric, single-frequency, operational weather radars. The performance of two attenuation correction schemes, the (forward Hitschfeld-Bordan algorithm and the (backward Marzoug-Amayenc algorithm, is analyzed for both moderate (assuming a 50 km path length and intense Mediterranean rainfall (for a 30 km path. A comparison shows that the backward correction algorithm is more stable and accurate than the forward algorithm (with a bias in the order of a few percent for the former, compared to tens of percent for the latter, provided reliable estimates of the total path-integrated attenuation are available. Moreover, the bias and root mean square error associated with each algorithm are quantified as a function of path-averaged rain rate and distance from the radar in order to provide a plausible order of magnitude for the uncertainty in radar-retrieved rain rates for hydrological applications.

CAMEX-3 POLARIMETRIC SCANNING RADIOMETER (PSR) V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR) is a versatile airborne microwave imaging radiometer developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the NOAA...

Fast polarimetric dehazing method for visibility enhancement in HSI colour space

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Wenfei; Liang, Jian; Ren, Liyong; Ju, Haijuan; Bai, Zhaofeng; Wu, Zhaoxin

2017-09-01

Image haze removal has attracted much attention in optics and computer vision fields in recent years due to its wide applications. In particular, the fast and real-time dehazing methods are of significance. In this paper, we propose a fast dehazing method in hue, saturation and intensity colour space based on the polarimetric imaging technique. We implement the polarimetric dehazing method in the intensity channel, and the colour distortion of the image is corrected using the white patch retinex method. This method not only reserves the detailed information restoration capacity, but also improves the efficiency of the polarimetric dehazing method. Comparison studies with state of the art methods demonstrate that the proposed method obtains equal or better quality results and moreover the implementation is much faster. The proposed method is promising in real-time image haze removal and video haze removal applications.

Radar-to-Radar Interference Suppression for Distributed Radar Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wen-Qin Wang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Radar sensor networks, including bi- and multi-static radars, provide several operational advantages, like reduced vulnerability, good system flexibility and an increased radar cross-section. However, radar-to-radar interference suppression is a major problem in distributed radar sensor networks. In this paper, we present a cross-matched filtering-based radar-to-radar interference suppression algorithm. This algorithm first uses an iterative filtering algorithm to suppress the radar-to-radar interferences and, then, separately matched filtering for each radar. Besides the detailed algorithm derivation, extensive numerical simulation examples are performed with the down-chirp and up-chirp waveforms, partially overlapped or inverse chirp rate linearly frequency modulation (LFM waveforms and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ODFM chirp diverse waveforms. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by the simulation results.

Observational Constraints on Cloud Feedbacks: The Role of Active Satellite Sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Winker, David; Chepfer, Helene; Noel, Vincent; Cai, Xia

2017-11-01

Cloud profiling from active lidar and radar in the A-train satellite constellation has significantly advanced our understanding of clouds and their role in the climate system. Nevertheless, the response of clouds to a warming climate remains one of the largest uncertainties in predicting climate change and for the development of adaptions to change. Both observation of long-term changes and observational constraints on the processes responsible for those changes are necessary. We review recent progress in our understanding of the cloud feedback problem. Capabilities and advantages of active sensors for observing clouds are discussed, along with the importance of active sensors for deriving constraints on cloud feedbacks as an essential component of a global climate observing system.

Development and validation of P-MODTRAN7 and P-MCScene, 1D and 3D polarimetric radiative transfer models

Science.gov (United States)

Hawes, Frederick T.; Berk, Alexander; Richtsmeier, Steven C.

2016-05-01

A validated, polarimetric 3-dimensional simulation capability, P-MCScene, is being developed by generalizing Spectral Sciences' Monte Carlo-based synthetic scene simulation model, MCScene, to include calculation of all 4 Stokes components. P-MCScene polarimetric optical databases will be generated by a new version (MODTRAN7) of the government-standard MODTRAN radiative transfer algorithm. The conversion of MODTRAN6 to a polarimetric model is being accomplished by (1) introducing polarimetric data, by (2) vectorizing the MODTRAN radiation calculations and by (3) integrating the newly revised and validated vector discrete ordinate model VDISORT3. Early results, presented here, demonstrate a clear pathway to the long-term goal of fully validated polarimetric models.

Quantifying South East Asia's forest degradation using latest generation optical and radar satellite remote sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Broich, M.; Tulbure, M. G.; Wijaya, A.; Weisse, M.; Stolle, F.

2017-12-01

Deforestation and forest degradation form the 2nd largest source of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. While deforestation is being globally mapped with satellite image time series, degradation remains insufficiently quantified. Previous studies quantified degradation for small scale, local sites. A method suitable for accurate mapping across large areas has not yet been developed due to the variability of the low magnitude and short-lived degradation signal and the absence of data with suitable resolution properties. Here we use a combination of newly available streams of free optical and radar image time series acquired by NASA and ESA, and HPC-based data science algorithms to innovatively quantify degradation consistently across Southeast Asia (SEA). We used Sentinel1 c-band radar data and NASA's new Harmonized Landsat8 (L8) Sentinel2 (S2) product (HLS) for cloud free optical images. Our results show that dense time series of cloud penetrating Sentinel 1 c-band radar can provide degradation alarm flags, while the HLS product of cloud-free optical images can unambiguously confirm degradation alarms. The detectability of degradation differed across SEA. In the seasonal forest of continental SEA the reliability of our radar-based alarm flags increased as the variability in landscape moisture decreases in the dry season. We reliably confirmed alarms with optical image time series during the late dry season, where degradation in open canopy forests becomes detectable once the undergrowth vegetation has died down. Conversely, in insular SEA landscape moisture is low, the radar time series generated degradation alarms flags with moderate to high reliability throughout the year, further confirmed with the HLS product. Based on the HLS product we can now confirm degradation within time series provides better results than either one on its own. Our results provide significant information with application for carbon trading policy and land management.

Detecting Weather Radar Clutter by Information Fusion With Satellite Images and Numerical Weather Prediction Model Output

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bøvith, Thomas; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Hansen, Lars Kai

2006-01-01

A method for detecting clutter in weather radar images by information fusion is presented. Radar data, satellite images, and output from a numerical weather prediction model are combined and the radar echoes are classified using supervised classification. The presented method uses indirect...... information on precipitation in the atmosphere from Meteosat-8 multispectral images and near-surface temperature estimates from the DMI-HIRLAM-S05 numerical weather prediction model. Alternatively, an operational nowcasting product called 'Precipitating Clouds' based on Meteosat-8 input is used. A scale...

Combining Passive Microwave Rain Rate Retrieval with Visible and Infrared Cloud Classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Shawn William

The relation between cloud type and rain rate has been investigated here from different approaches. Previous studies and intercomparisons have indicated that no single passive microwave rain rate algorithm is an optimal choice for all types of precipitating systems. Motivated by the upcoming Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), an algorithm which combines visible and infrared cloud classification with passive microwave rain rate estimation was developed and analyzed in a preliminary manner using data from the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere-Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA-COARE). Overall correlation with radar rain rate measurements across five case studies showed substantial improvement in the combined algorithm approach when compared to the use of any single microwave algorithm. An automated neural network cloud classifier for use over both land and ocean was independently developed and tested on Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. The global classifier achieved strict accuracy for 82% of the test samples, while a more localized version achieved strict accuracy for 89% of its own test set. These numbers provide hope for the eventual development of a global automated cloud classifier for use throughout the tropics and the temperate zones. The localized classifier was used in conjunction with gridded 15-minute averaged radar rain rates at 8km resolution produced from the current operational network of National Weather Service (NWS) radars, to investigate the relation between cloud type and rain rate over three regions of the continental United States and adjacent waters. The results indicate a substantially lower amount of available moisture in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains than in the Midwest or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Passive Polarimetric Microwave Signatures Observed Over Antarctica

Science.gov (United States)

WindSat satellite-based fully polarimetric passive microwave observations, expressed in the form of the Stokes vector, were analyzed over the Antarctic ice sheet. The vertically and horizontally polarized brightness temperatures (first two Stokes components) from WindSat are shown to be consistent w...

Ice particle production in mid-level stratiform mixed-phase clouds observed with collocated A-Train measurements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. Zhang

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Collocated A-Train CloudSat radar and CALIPSO lidar measurements between 2006 and 2010 are analyzed to study primary ice particle production characteristics in mid-level stratiform mixed-phase clouds on a global scale. For similar clouds in terms of cloud top temperature and liquid water path, Northern Hemisphere latitude bands have layer-maximum radar reflectivity (ZL that is  ∼  1 to 8 dBZ larger than their counterparts in the Southern Hemisphere. The systematically larger ZL under similar cloud conditions suggests larger ice number concentrations in mid-level stratiform mixed-phase clouds over the Northern Hemisphere, which is possibly related to higher background aerosol loadings. Furthermore, we show that springtime northern mid- and high latitudes have ZL that is larger by up to 6 dBZ (a factor of 4 higher ice number concentration than other seasons, which might be related to more dust events that provide effective ice nucleating particles. Our study suggests that aerosol-dependent ice number concentration parameterizations are required in climate models to improve mixed-phase cloud simulations, especially over the Northern Hemisphere.

Clouds vertical properties over the Northern Hemisphere monsoon regions from CloudSat-CALIPSO measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Das, Subrata Kumar; Golhait, R. B.; Uma, K. N.

2017-01-01

The CloudSat spaceborne radar and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) space-borne lidar measurements, provide opportunities to understand the intriguing behavior of the vertical structure of monsoon clouds. The combined CloudSat-CALIPSO data products have been used for the summer season (June-August) of 2006-2010 to present the statistics of cloud macrophysical (such as cloud occurrence frequency, distribution of cloud top and base heights, geometrical thickness and cloud types base on occurrence height), and microphysical (such as ice water content, ice water path, and ice effective radius) properties of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) monsoon region. The monsoon regions considered in this work are the North American (NAM), North African (NAF), Indian (IND), East Asian (EAS), and Western North Pacific (WNP). The total cloud fraction over the IND (mostly multiple-layered cloud) appeared to be more frequent as compared to the other monsoon regions. Three distinctive modes of cloud top height distribution are observed over all the monsoon regions. The high-level cloud fraction is comparatively high over the WNP and IND. The ice water content and ice water path over the IND are maximum compared to the other monsoon regions. We found that the ice water content has little variations over the NAM, NAF, IND, and WNP as compared to their macrophysical properties and thus give an impression that the regional differences in dynamics and thermodynamics properties primarily cause changes in the cloud frequency or coverage and only secondary in the cloud ice properties. The background atmospheric dynamics using wind and relative humidity from the ERA-Interim reanalysis data have also been investigated which helps in understanding the variability of the cloud properties over the different monsoon regions.

Authentication of gold nanoparticle encoded pharmaceutical tablets using polarimetric signatures.

Science.gov (United States)

Carnicer, Artur; Arteaga, Oriol; Suñé-Negre, Josep M; Javidi, Bahram

2016-10-01

The counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products represents concerns for both industry and the safety of the general public. Falsification produces losses to companies and poses health risks for patients. In order to detect fake pharmaceutical tablets, we propose producing film-coated tablets with gold nanoparticle encoding. These coated tablets contain unique polarimetric signatures. We present experiments to show that ellipsometric optical techniques, in combination with machine learning algorithms, can be used to distinguish genuine and fake samples. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report using gold nanoparticles encoded with optical polarimetric classifiers to prevent the counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products.

Speckle Filtering of GF-3 Polarimetric SAR Data with Joint Restriction Principle.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Jinwei; Li, Zhenfang; Zhou, Chaowei; Fang, Yuyuan; Zhang, Qingjun

2018-05-12

Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) scattering characteristics of imagery are always obtained from the second order moments estimation of multi-polarization data, that is, the estimation of covariance or coherency matrices. Due to the extra-paths that signal reflected from separate scatterers within the resolution cell has to travel, speckle noise always exists in SAR images and has a severe impact on the scattering performance, especially on single look complex images. In order to achieve high accuracy in estimating covariance or coherency matrices, three aspects are taken into consideration: (1) the edges and texture of the scene are distinct after speckle filtering; (2) the statistical characteristic should be similar to the object pixel; and (3) the polarimetric scattering signature should be preserved, in addition to speckle reduction. In this paper, a joint restriction principle is proposed to meet the requirement. Three different restriction principles are introduced to the processing of speckle filtering. First, a new template, which is more suitable for the point or line targets, is designed to ensure the morphological consistency. Then, the extent sigma filter is used to restrict the pixels in the template aforementioned to have an identical statistic characteristic. At last, a polarimetric similarity factor is applied to the same pixels above, to guarantee the similar polarimetric features amongst the optional pixels. This processing procedure is named as speckle filtering with joint restriction principle and the approach is applied to GF-3 polarimetric SAR data acquired in San Francisco, CA, USA. Its effectiveness of keeping the image sharpness and preserving the scattering mechanism as well as speckle reduction is validated by the comparison with boxcar filters and refined Lee filter.

18th International Laser Radar Conference

CERN Document Server

Neuber, Roland; Rairoux, Patrick; Wandinger, Ulla

1997-01-01

Lidar or laser radar, the depth-resolved remote measurement of atmospheric parameters with optical means, has become an important tool in the field of atmospheric and environmental remote sensing. In this volume the latest progress in the development of lidar methods, experiments, and applications is described. The content is based on selected and thoroughly refereed papers presented at the 18th International Laser Radar Conference, Berlin, 22-26 July 1996. The book is divided into six parts which cover the topics of tropospheric aerosols and clouds, lidar in space, wind, water vapor, troposheric trace gases and plumes, and stratospheric and mesospheric profiling. As a supplement to fundamental lidar textbooks this volume may serve as a guide for scientists, engineers, and graduate students through the blossoming field of modern lidar techniques and their contribution to atmospheric and environmental research.

Comparative determination of sucrose content in sugar beet by polarimetric and isotope dilution methods

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Malec, K; Szuchnik, A [Institute of Nuclear Research, Warsaw (Poland); Rydel, S; Walerianaczyk, E [Instytut Przemyslu Cukrowniczego, Warsaw (Poland)

1976-01-01

The comparative determination of sucrose content in sugar beets has been investigated by following methods: polarimetric, direct isotope dilution and double carrier-isotope dilution analysis. Basing upon the obtained results it has been ascertained, that in the case of worse quality beets the polarimetric determinations differ greatly from isotopic data.

Influence of 3D effects on 1D aerosol retrievals in synthetic, partially clouded scenes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stap, F.A.; Hasekamp, O.P.; Emde, C.; Röckmann, T.

2016-01-01

An important challenge in aerosol remote sensing is to retrieve aerosol properties in the vicinity of clouds and in cloud contaminated scenes. Satellite based multi-wavelength, multi-angular, photo-polarimetric instruments are particularly suited for this task as they have the ability to separate scattering by aerosol and cloud particles. Simultaneous aerosol/cloud retrievals using 1D radiative transfer codes cannot account for 3D effects such as shadows, cloud induced enhancements and darkening of cloud edges. In this study we investigate what errors are introduced on the retrieved optical and micro-physical aerosol properties, when these 3D effects are neglected in retrievals where the partial cloud cover is modeled using the Independent Pixel Approximation. To this end a generic, synthetic data set of PARASOL like observations for 3D scenes with partial, liquid water cloud cover is created. It is found that in scenes with random cloud distributions (i.e. broken cloud fields) and either low cloud optical thickness or low cloud fraction, the inversion algorithm can fit the observations and retrieve optical and micro-physical aerosol properties with sufficient accuracy. In scenes with non-random cloud distributions (e.g. at the edge of a cloud field) the inversion algorithm can fit the observations, however, here the retrieved real part of the refractive indices of both modes is biased. - Highlights: • An algorithm for retrieval of both aerosol and cloud properties is presented. • Radiative transfer models of 3D, partially clouded scenes are simulated. • Errors introduced in the retrieved aerosol properties are discussed.

Forest Structure Characterization Using Jpl's UAVSAR Multi-Baseline Polarimetric SAR Interferometry and Tomography

Science.gov (United States)

Neumann, Maxim; Hensley, Scott; Lavalle, Marco; Ahmed, Razi

2013-01-01

This paper concerns forest remote sensing using JPL's multi-baseline polarimetric interferometric UAVSAR data. It presents exemplary results and analyzes the possibilities and limitations of using SAR Tomography and Polarimetric SAR Interferometry (PolInSAR) techniques for the estimation of forest structure. Performance and error indicators for the applicability and reliability of the used multi-baseline (MB) multi-temporal (MT) PolInSAR random volume over ground (RVoG) model are discussed. Experimental results are presented based on JPL's L-band repeat-pass polarimetric interferometric UAVSAR data over temperate and tropical forest biomes in the Harvard Forest, Massachusetts, and in the La Amistad Park, Panama and Costa Rica. The results are partially compared with ground field measurements and with air-borne LVIS lidar data.

Soil Moisture Estimation over Vegetated Agricultural Areas: Tigris Basin, Turkey from Radarsat-2 Data by Polarimetric Decomposition Models and a Generalized Regression Neural Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet Siraç Özerdem

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Determining the soil moisture in agricultural fields is a significant parameter to use irrigation systems efficiently. In contrast to standard soil moisture measurements, good results might be acquired in a shorter time over large areas by remote sensing tools. In order to estimate the soil moisture over vegetated agricultural areas, a relationship between Radarsat-2 data and measured ground soil moistures was established by polarimetric decomposition models and a generalized regression neural network (GRNN. The experiments were executed over two agricultural sites on the Tigris Basin, Turkey. The study consists of four phases. In the first stage, Radarsat-2 data were acquired on different dates and in situ measurements were implemented simultaneously. In the second phase, the Radarsat-2 data were pre-processed and the GPS coordinates of the soil sample points were imported to this data. Then the standard sigma backscattering coefficients with the Freeman–Durden and H/A/α polarimetric decomposition models were employed for feature extraction and a feature vector with four sigma backscattering coefficients (σhh, σhv, σvh, and σvv and six polarimetric decomposition parameters (entropy, anisotropy, alpha angle, volume scattering, odd bounce, and double bounce were generated for each pattern. In the last stage, GRNN was used to estimate the regional soil moisture with the aid of feature vectors. The results indicated that radar is a strong remote sensing tool for soil moisture estimation, with mean absolute errors around 2.31 vol %, 2.11 vol %, and 2.10 vol % for Datasets 1–3, respectively; and 2.46 vol %, 2.70 vol %, 7.09 vol %, and 5.70 vol % on Datasets 1 & 2, 2 & 3, 1 & 3, and 1 & 2 & 3, respectively.

Comparison between Multitemporal and Polarimetric SAR Data for Land Cover Classification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skriver, Henning

2008-01-01

The investigation focuses on the determination of the land cover type using SAR data, including single polarisation, dual polarisation and fully polarimetric data, at L-band. The analysed data set was acquired during the AgriSAR 2006 campaign by the airborne ESAR system over the Gormin agricultural...... site (Northeast Germany). The multitemporal acquisitions significantly improve the classification results for single and dual polarization configurations. The best results for the single and dual polarization configurations are better than for the polarimetric mode. Overall, the cross...

Polarimetric Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Particulate Pollutants

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Z.; Zhang, Y.; Hong, J.

2018-04-01

Atmospheric particulate pollutants not only reduce atmospheric visibility, change the energy balance of the troposphere, but also affect human and vegetation health. For monitoring the particulate pollutants, we establish and develop a series of inversion algorithms based on polarimetric remote sensing technology which has unique advantages in dealing with atmospheric particulates. A solution is pointed out to estimate the near surface PM2.5 mass concentrations from full remote sensing measurements including polarimetric, active and infrared remote sensing technologies. It is found that the mean relative error of PM2.5 retrieved by full remote sensing measurements is 35.5 % in the case of October 5th 2013, improved to a certain degree compared to previous studies. A systematic comparison with the ground-based observations further indicates the effectiveness of the inversion algorithm and reliability of results. A new generation of polarized sensors (DPC and PCF), whose observation can support these algorithms, will be onboard GF series satellites and launched by China in the near future.

Characterization of the cloud conditions at Ny-Ålesund using sensor synergy and representativeness of the observed clouds across Arctic sites

Science.gov (United States)

Nomokonova, Tatiana; Ebell, Kerstin; Löhnert, Ulrich; Maturilli, Marion

2017-04-01

Clouds are one of the crucial components of the hydrological and energy cycles and thus affecting the global climate. Their special importance in Arctic regions is defined by cloud's influence on the radiation budget. Arctic clouds usually occur at low altitudes and often contain highly concentrated tiny liquid drops. During winter, spring, and autumn periods such clouds tend to conserve the long-wave radiation in the atmosphere and, thus, produce warming of the Arctic climate. In summer though clouds efficiently scatter the solar radiation back to space and, therefore, induce a cooling effect. An accurate characterization of the net effect of clouds on the Arctic climate requires long-term and precise observations. However, only a few measurement sites exist which perform continuous, vertically resolved observations of clouds in the Arctic, e.g. in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. These sites typically make use of a combination of different ground-based remote sensing instruments, e.g. cloud radar, ceilometer and microwave radiometer in order to characterize clouds. Within the Transregional Collaborative Research Center (TR 172) "Arctic Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and Surface Processes, and Feedback Mechanisms (AC)3" comprehensive observations of the atmospheric column are performed at the German-French Research Station AWIPEV at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. Ny-Ålesund is located in the warmest part of the Arctic where climate is significantly influenced by adiabatic heating from the warm ocean. Thus, measurements at Ny-Ålesund will complement our understanding of cloud formation and development in the Arctic. This particular study is devoted to the characterization of the cloud macro- and microphysical properties at Ny-Ålesund and of the atmospheric conditions, under which these clouds form and develop. To this end, the information of the various instrumentation at the AWIPEV observatory is synergistically analysed: information about the thermodynamic

Reconciling Ground-Based and Space-Based Estimates of the Frequency of Occurrence and Radiative Effect of Clouds around Darwin, Australia

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Protat, Alain; Young, Stuart; McFarlane, Sally A.; L' Ecuyer, Tristan; Mace, Gerald G.; Comstock, Jennifer M.; Long, Charles N.; Berry, Elizabeth; Delanoe, Julien

2014-02-01

The objective of this paper is to investigate whether estimates of the cloud frequency of occurrence and associated cloud radiative forcing as derived from ground-based and satellite active remote sensing and radiative transfer calculations can be reconciled over a well instrumented active remote sensing site located in Darwin, Australia, despite the very different viewing geometry and instrument characteristics. It is found that the ground-based radar-lidar combination at Darwin does not detect most of the cirrus clouds above 10 km (due to limited lidar detection capability and signal obscuration by low-level clouds) and that the CloudSat radar - Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) combination underreports the hydrometeor frequency of occurrence below 2 km height, due to instrument limitations at these heights. The radiative impact associated with these differences in cloud frequency of occurrence is large on the surface downwelling shortwave fluxes (ground and satellite) and the top-of atmosphere upwelling shortwave and longwave fluxes (ground). Good agreement is found for other radiative fluxes. Large differences in radiative heating rate as derived from ground and satellite radar-lidar instruments and RT calculations are also found above 10 km (up to 0.35 Kday-1 for the shortwave and 0.8 Kday-1 for the longwave). Given that the ground-based and satellite estimates of cloud frequency of occurrence and radiative impact cannot be fully reconciled over Darwin, caution should be exercised when evaluating the representation of clouds and cloud-radiation interactions in large-scale models and limitations of each set of instrumentation should be considered when interpreting model-observations differences.

A CloudSat-CALIPSO View of Cloud and Precipitation Properties Across Cold Fronts over the Global Oceans

Science.gov (United States)

Naud, Catherine M.; Posselt, Derek J.; van den Heever, Susan C.

2015-01-01

The distribution of cloud and precipitation properties across oceanic extratropical cyclone cold fronts is examined using four years of combined CloudSat radar and CALIPSO lidar retrievals. The global annual mean cloud and precipitation distributions show that low-level clouds are ubiquitous in the post frontal zone while higher-level cloud frequency and precipitation peak in the warm sector along the surface front. Increases in temperature and moisture within the cold front region are associated with larger high-level but lower mid-/low level cloud frequencies and precipitation decreases in the cold sector. This behavior seems to be related to a shift from stratiform to convective clouds and precipitation. Stronger ascent in the warm conveyor belt tends to enhance cloudiness and precipitation across the cold front. A strong temperature contrast between the warm and cold sectors also encourages greater post-cold-frontal cloud occurrence. While the seasonal contrasts in environmental temperature, moisture, and ascent strength are enough to explain most of the variations in cloud and precipitation across cold fronts in both hemispheres, they do not fully explain the differences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere cold fronts. These differences are better explained when the impact of the contrast in temperature across the cold front is also considered. In addition, these large-scale parameters do not explain the relatively large frequency in springtime post frontal precipitation.

Application of radar polarimetry techniques for retrieval snow and rain characteristics in remote sensing

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M. Darvishi

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The presence of snow cover has significant impacts on the both global and regional climate and water balance on earth. The accurate estimation of snow cover area can be used for forecasting runoff due to snow melt and output of hydroelectric power. With development of remote sensing techniques at different scopes in earth science, enormous algorithms for retrieval hydrometeor parameters have been developed. Some of these algorithms are used to provide snow cover map such as NLR with AVHRR/MODIS sensor for Norway, Finnish with AVHRR sensor for Finland and NASA with MODIS sensor for global maps. Monitoring snow cover at different parts of spectral electromagnetic is detectable (visible, near and thermal infrared, passive and active microwave. Recently, specific capabilities of active microwave remote sensing such as snow extent map, snow depth, snow water equivalent (SWE, snow state (wet/dry and discrimination between rain and snow region were given a strong impetus for using this technology in snow monitoring, hydrology, climatology, avalanche research and etc. This paper evaluates the potentials and feasibility of polarimetric ground microwave measurements of snow in active remote sensing field. We will consider the behavior co- and cross-polarized backscattering coefficients of snowpack response with polarimetric scatterometer in Ku and L band at the different incident angles. Then we will show how to retrieve snow cover depth, snow permittivity and density parameters at the local scale with ground-based SAR (GB-SAR. Finally, for the sake of remarkable significant the transition region between rain and snow; the variables role of horizontal reflectivity (ZHH and differential reflectivity (ZDR in delineation boundary between snow and rain and some others important variables at polarimetric weather radar are presented.

A Novel Strategy of Ambiguity Correction for the Improved Faraday Rotation Estimator in Linearly Full-Polarimetric SAR Data

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Jinhui Li

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR missions operating at low frequencies, such as L-band or P-band, are significantly influenced by the ionosphere. As one of the serious ionosphere effects, Faraday rotation (FR is a remarkable distortion source for the polarimetric SAR (PolSAR application. Various published FR estimators along with an improved one have been introduced to solve this issue, all of which are implemented by processing a set of PolSAR real data. The improved estimator exhibits optimal robustness based on performance analysis, especially in term of the system noise. However, all published estimators, including the improved estimator, suffer from a potential FR angle (FRA ambiguity. A novel strategy of the ambiguity correction for those FR estimators is proposed and shown as a flow process, which is divided into pixel-level and image-level correction. The former is not yet recognized and thus is considered in particular. Finally, the validation experiments show a prominent performance of the proposed strategy.

A Novel Strategy of Ambiguity Correction for the Improved Faraday Rotation Estimator in Linearly Full-Polarimetric SAR Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jinhui; Ji, Yifei; Zhang, Yongsheng; Zhang, Qilei; Huang, Haifeng; Dong, Zhen

2018-04-10

Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions operating at low frequencies, such as L-band or P-band, are significantly influenced by the ionosphere. As one of the serious ionosphere effects, Faraday rotation (FR) is a remarkable distortion source for the polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) application. Various published FR estimators along with an improved one have been introduced to solve this issue, all of which are implemented by processing a set of PolSAR real data. The improved estimator exhibits optimal robustness based on performance analysis, especially in term of the system noise. However, all published estimators, including the improved estimator, suffer from a potential FR angle (FRA) ambiguity. A novel strategy of the ambiguity correction for those FR estimators is proposed and shown as a flow process, which is divided into pixel-level and image-level correction. The former is not yet recognized and thus is considered in particular. Finally, the validation experiments show a prominent performance of the proposed strategy.

The effect of orbital eccentricity on polarimetric binary diagnostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aspin, C.; Brown, J.C.; Simmons, J.F.L.

1980-01-01

The polarimetric variation from a binary system with an eccentric orbit, thus non-corotating, are calculated and the effect on determining the system parameters is discussed, relative to the circular case. (Auth.)

Biogenic Aerosol - Effect on Clouds and Climate (BAECC-ERI). Extended Radiosonde Intensive Operational Period Final Campaign Summary

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nicoll, Ken A. [Univ. of Reading (United Kingdom); O' Connor, E. [Univ. of Helsinki (Finland)

2016-02-01

Large-scale properties of clouds such as lifetime, optical thickness, and precipitation are all dependent on small-scale cloud microphysical processes. Such processes determine when droplets will grow or shrink, their size, and the number of cloud droplets. Although our understanding of cloud microphysics has vastly improved over the past several decades with the development of remote sensing methods such as lidar and radar, there remain a number of processes that are not well understood, such as the effect of electrical charge on cloud microphysics. To understand the various processes and feedback mechanisms, high-vertical–resolution observations are required. Radiosondes provide an ideal platform for providing routine vertical profiles of in situ measurements at any location (with a vertical resolution of a few meters). Modified meteorological radiosondes have been extensively developed at the University of Reading for measuring cloud properties, to allow measurements beyond the traditional thermodynamic quantities (pressure, temperature and relative humidity) to be obtained cost-effectively. This project aims to investigate a number of cloud processes in which in situ cloud observations from these modified radiosondes can provide information either complementary to or not obtainable by lidar/radar systems. During two intensive operational periods (IOPs) in May and August 2014 during deployment to Hyytiälä, Finland, the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility’s Second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) launched a total of 24 instrumented radiosondes through a number of different cloud types ranging from low-level stratiform cloud to cumulonimbus. Twelve balloon flights of an accelerometer turbulence sensor were made, which detected significant turbulence on eleven of these flights. Most of the turbulent episodes encountered were due to convective processes, but several were associated with the transition from troposphere to stratosphere at

Statistical Comparison of Cloud and Aerosol Vertical Properties between Two Eastern China Regions Based on CloudSat/CALIPSO Data

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Yujun Qiu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The relationship between cloud and aerosol properties was investigated over two 4° × 4° adjacent regions in the south (R1 and in the north (R2 in eastern China. The CloudSat/CALIPSO data were used to extract the cloud and aerosol profiles properties. The mean value of cloud occurrence probability (COP was the highest in the mixed cloud layer (−40°C~0°C and the lowest in the warm cloud layer (>0°C. The atmospheric humidity was more statistically relevant to COP in the warm cloud layer than aerosol condition. The differences in COP between the two regions in the mixed cloud layer and ice cloud layer (<−40°C had good correlations with those in the aerosol extinction coefficient. A radar reflectivity factor greater than −10 dBZ occurred mainly in warm cloud layers and mixed cloud layers. A high-COP zone appeared in the above-0°C layer with cloud thicknesses of 2-3 km in both regions and in all the four seasons, but the distribution of the zonal layer in R2 was more continuous than that in R1, which was consistent with the higher aerosol optical thickness in R2 than in R1 in the above-0°C layer, indicating a positive correlation between aerosol and cloud probability.

3D Cloud Radiative Effects on Polarized Reflectances

Science.gov (United States)

Cornet, C.; Matar, C.; C-Labonnote, L.; Szczap, F.; Waquet, F.; Parol, F.; Riedi, J.

2017-12-01

As recognized in the last IPCC report, clouds have a major importance in the climate budget and need to be better characterized. Remote sensing observations are a way to obtain either global observations of cloud from satellites or a very fine description of clouds from airborne measurements. An increasing numbers of radiometers plan to measure polarized reflectances in addition to total reflectances, since this information is very helpful to obtain aerosol or cloud properties. In a near future, for example, the Multi-viewing, Multi-channel, Multi-polarization Imager (3MI) will be part the EPS-SG Eumetsat-ESA mission. It will achieve multi-angular polarimetric measurements from visible to shortwave infrared wavelengths. An airborne prototype, OSIRIS (Observing System Including Polarization in the Solar Infrared Spectrum), is also presently developed at the Laboratoire d'Optique Atmospherique and had already participated to several measurements campaigns. In order to analyze suitably the measured signal, it it necessary to have realistic and accurate models able to simulate polarized reflectances. The 3DCLOUD model (Szczap et al., 2014) was used to generate three-dimensional synthetic cloud and the 3D radiative transfer model, 3DMCPOL (Cornet et al., 2010) to compute realistic polarized reflectances. From these simulations, we investigate the effects of 3D cloud structures and heterogeneity on the polarized angular signature often used to retrieve cloud or aerosol properties. We show that 3D effects are weak for flat clouds but become quite significant for fractional clouds above ocean. The 3D effects are quite different according to the observation scale. For the airborne scale (few tens of meter), solar illumination effects can lead to polarized cloud reflectance values higher than the saturation limit predicted by the homogeneous cloud assumption. In the cloud gaps, corresponding to shadowed areas of the total reflectances, polarized signal can also be enhanced

Improved Micro Rain Radar snow measurements using Doppler spectra post-processing

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M. Maahn

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The Micro Rain Radar 2 (MRR is a compact Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW system that operates at 24 GHz. The MRR is a low-cost, portable radar system that requires minimum supervision in the field. As such, the MRR is a frequently used radar system for conducting precipitation research. Current MRR drawbacks are the lack of a sophisticated post-processing algorithm to improve its sensitivity (currently at +3 dBz, spurious artefacts concerning radar receiver noise and the lack of high quality Doppler radar moments. Here we propose an improved processing method which is especially suited for snow observations and provides reliable values of effective reflectivity, Doppler velocity and spectral width. The proposed method is freely available on the web and features a noise removal based on recognition of the most significant peak. A dynamic dealiasing routine allows observations even if the Nyquist velocity range is exceeded. Collocated observations over 115 days of a MRR and a pulsed 35.2 GHz MIRA35 cloud radar show a very high agreement for the proposed method for snow, if reflectivities are larger than −5 dBz. The overall sensitivity is increased to −14 and −8 dBz, depending on range. The proposed method exploits the full potential of MRR's hardware and substantially enhances the use of Micro Rain Radar for studies of solid precipitation.

Polarimetric survey of main-belt asteroids⋆. III. Results for 33 X-type objects

Science.gov (United States)

Cañada-Assandri, M.; Gil-Hutton, R.; Benavidez, P.

2012-06-01

Aims: We present results of a polarimetric survey of main-belt asteroids at Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito (Casleo), San Juan, Argentina. The aims of this survey are to increase the database of asteroid polarimetry, to estimate diversity in polarimetric properties of asteroids that belong to different taxonomic classes, and to search for objects that exhibit anomalous polarimetric properties. Methods: The data were obtained with the Torino and CASPROF polarimeters at the 2.15 m telescope. The Torino polarimeter is an instrument that allows the simultaneous measurement of polarization in five different bands, and the CASPROF polarimeter is a two-hole aperture polarimeter with rapid modulation. Results: The survey began in 2003, and up to 2009 data of a sample of more than 170 asteroids were obtained. In this paper the results for 33 X-type objects are presented, several of them are being polarimetrically observed for the first time. Using these data we found polarization curves and polarimetric parameters for different groups among this taxonomic class and that there are objects with very different albedo in the sub-classes of the X taxonomic complex. Based on observations carried out at the Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito, operated under agreement between the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la República Argentina and the National Universities of La Plata, Córdoba, and San Juan.Table 1 is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/542/A11

Clouds, Aerosol, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer: An ARM Mobile Facility Deployment

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Robert; Wyant, Matthew; Bretherton, Christopher S.; Remillard, Jasmine; Kollias, Pavlos; Fletcher, Jennifer; Stemmler, Jayson; de Szoeke, Simone; Yuter, Sandra; Miller, Matthew;