Measurements of Rainfall Velocity and Raindrop Size Distribution Using Coherent Doppler Lidar

Abstract

AbstractRainfall velocity, raindrop size distribution (DSD), and vertical wind velocity were simultaneously observed with 2.05- and 1.54-μm coherent Doppler lidars during convective and stratiform rain events. A retrieval method is based on identifying two separate spectra from the convolution of the aerosol and precipitation Doppler lidar spectra. The vertical wind velocity was retrieved from the aerosol spectrum peak and then the terminal rainfall velocity corrected by the vertical air motion from the precipitation spectrum peak was obtained. The DSD was derived from the precipitation spectrum using the relationship between the raindrop size and the terminal rainfall velocity. A comparison of the 1-min-averaged rainfall velocity from Doppler lidar measurements at a minimum range and that from a collocated ground-based optical disdrometer revealed high correlation coefficients of over 0.89 for both convective and stratiform rain events. The 1-min-averaged DSDs retrieved from the Doppler lidar spectrum using parametric and nonparametric methods are also in good agreement with those measured with the optical disdrometer with a correlation coefficient of over 0.80 for all rain events. To retrieve the DSD, the parametric method assumes a mathematical function for the DSD and the nonparametric method computes the direct deconvolution of the measured Doppler lidar spectrum without assuming a DSD function. It is confirmed that the Doppler lidar can retrieve the rainfall velocity and DSD during relatively heavy rain, whereas the ratio of valid data significantly decreases in light rain events because it is extremely difficult to separate the overlapping rain and aerosol peaks in the Doppler spectrum.