Dual-Frequency Airborne Precipitation Radar observations in the tropics during 2006 and 2007

The airborne rain profiling radar, known as the Dual-Frequency Airborne Precipitation Radar (APR-2), has been developed as a prototype of the second-generation rain radar instruments for future spaceborne precipitation measurement missions. APR-2 is capable of making simultaneous measurements of multiple rainfall parameters, including co-polarized and cross-polarized reflectivities and vertical Doppler velocities of rainfall and snowfall at both 14 and 35 GHz. APR-2 was deployed on the NASA DC-8 aircraft for NAMMA and TC4 experiments during the summers of 2006 and 2007, respectively. The radar acquired data during 35 science flights, for a total of more than 60 hours of collection time. The high-resolution, three-dimensional fields of radar parameters have been used jointly with in-situ probes on board the DC-8 to characterize precipitating systems in tropical environments. We will present here the results of such retrievals in two distinct case studies: Tropical Storm Debby (2006) as compared to the corresponding WRF model output and an example of intense convection in the eastern Pacific (2007). The research described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.