Operational and automatic calibration monitoring based on a polarimetric self-consistency procedure

From the beginning of year 2009, an automatic procedure has been implemented to monitor the X-band HYDRIX radar calibration. This procedure is based on both self-consistency method (KDP/Z-ZDR consistency in rain), and the radar-derived N0* (DSD intercept parameter) statistics one, exclusively using outputs from the rain profiling algorithm ZPHI®: while Z and ZDR are corrected for attenuation, KDP is provided with much more accuracy than the regular estimates obtained from PHIDP differentiation. The associated GUI interface allows monitoring the calibration instantaneously, and temporally for stabilisation survey.

In addition to showing the monitoring aspect, the paper also illustrates some validation through radar-gauge comparisons.