Radar derived quantitative precipitation estimates for cloud resolving and climate model studies

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility has installed C (5cm) and X (3cm) band polarimetric scanning radars at fixed sites at the Southern Great Plains Site(Oklahoma, USA), the Tropical Western Pacific Manus Island Site (Papua New Guinea) and North Slope of Alaska Barrow Site, Alaska (USA). These radars will be run in a continuous mode to support the collection of a long-term climate record. One highly sought geophysical parameter for climate studies and the forcing of cloud resolving models is Quantitative Precipitation Estimates (QPE). This presentation will outline plans for implementing and testing existing QPE algorithms at the ARM Southern Great Plains Site. Issues surrounding calibration and microphysical variations will be addressed by the development of an observational database containing rainfall and drop size distributions. Measurements will be collected using ARM precipitation gauges and distrometers, the Oklahoma Mesonet and the high density network deployed for the Mid-latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) intensive observational period. These observations will then be associated with moments and polarimetric measurements from the ARM radars for testing of retrieval techniques.