Evaluation of a fully self-consistent methodology to correct attenuation and differential attenuation at C-band

Abstract

A methodology to correct reflectivity factor and differential reflectivity at C-band for rain attenuation is presented and evaluated. The methodology is based on a full self-consistency condition describing the interrelation between polarimetric measurements and attenuation or differential attenuation along the rain medium. Evaluation is performed both using C-band profiles generated from S-band radar measurements collected by the NCAR S-Pol radar as well as data collected at C-band by the Polar 55 C radar in Italy. Evaluation shows improvement in performance with respect to the available techniques. In particular, it shows the capability to remove any systematic bias that could arise from drop size distribution variability from attenuation and differential attenuation estimates.