Current status of the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) level-2 standard algorithm development

Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) will be on the core satellite of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. For the DPR, Level-2 standard algorithm (L2) is designed to retrieve physical variables and information related to precipitation: precipitation rates, particle size distribution parameters, particle phases (liquid/solid/mixed), precipitation types (convective/stratiform/others), and so on. L2 is developed by a joint algorithm team under Precipitation Measurement Missions (PMM) of JAXA and NASA. In 2010, basic framework and major output variables of L2 were decided. L2 will consist of six sub modules: Preparation module, Vertical profile module, Classification module, Surface reference technique (SRT) module, Drop size distribution (DSD) module, and Solver module. In 2011, preliminary version of L2 is developed, though it may not satisfy the scientific requirement of the algorithm, which should be fulfilled by the end of 2012. In this presentation, the current status of each sub module development will be introduced by focusing new techniques special to dual-frequency precipitation radar.