Analysis of observational capability of Phased array meteorological radar in China

Phased array meteorological radar was developed to observe precipitation systems for research purposes in china. The S band phased array meteorological radar developed by the State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather of CAMS and Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology. The X band phased array meteorological radar developed by the State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather of CAMS and Anhui Sun-creat Electronic Co Ltd. In order to examine the observational capability of phase array meteorological radar and to test the operating mode and calibration, the nearby S band operational Doppler weather radar data were collected to be compared with phase array meteorological radar data. It is difficult to compare phased array meteorological radar data with operational Doppler weather radar data collected from different locations. In order to determine the detection capability of phased array meteorological radar, a reflectivity matching algorithm and a quantitative analysis method against the various radar resolution and different places are proposed. The operational Doppler weather radar data were interpolated onto the gate of phase array meteorological radar, and the matched reflectivity and velocity were used to analyze the differences between operational Doppler weather radar and phase array meteorological radar. The results indicated that phase array meteorological radar can capture the main characteristic of three dimension structures of precipitation. The averaged reflectivity differences between X band phase array radar and S band operational Doppler weather radar was from 4dB to 7dB. The averaged velocity differences between X band phase array radar and S band operational Doppler weather radar was negligible. The averaged reflectivity differences between S band phase array meteorological radar and S band operational Doppler weather radar was very low. The bias of velocity from the two radars was also negligible. The study provides a possible method for the quantitative comparison of the phase array meteorological radar, as well as the sensitivity of reflectivity, calibration, gain and bias introduced by pulse compression.