Precipitation observation comparison between ground based cloud radar and airborne cloud radar

Spaceborne cloud radar plays important roles in detecting 3-d structure of precipitation systems, especially in future FY-satellites in China. The field experiment for examing the observation capability of principle sample spaceborne cloud radar was conducted in Tianjin in July, 2010, in which, the principle sample spaceborne cloud radar located at airplane and ground based cloud radar and S band operational radar were used to observe the precipitation system. Aimed at examination of the detection capabilities of the spaceborne cloud radar, the comparison algorithm between different wavelength radars, ground based and airborne radars are president, and the field experiment data with ground-based cloud radar, S band weather radar and airborne cloud radar are used the examine the airborne cloud radar capability. The measured reflectivity bias between S and Ka band radars are analyzed with given raindrop size distribution. The results show that the reflectivity bias between S-band and Ka-band radar are less than 5 dB, the airborne cloud radar could measure reasonable vertical profile of reflectivity, but the measured reflectivity is 10dBZ stronger than the ground-based radars, the reflectivity in low level is usually strong than that measured by ground radar. This study provides a method to quantitative calibration of spaceborne radar. Key words: Space born cloud radar, observation data analysis,field experiment