Abstract
The modern era of polarimetric radar begins with radiowave propagation research starting in the early 1970s with applications to measurement and modeling of wave attenuation in rain and depolarization due to ice particles along satellite–earth links. While there is a rich history of radar in meteorology after World War II, the impetus provided by radiowave propagation requirements led to high-quality antennas and feeds. Our journey starts by describing the key institutions and personnel responsible for development of weather radar polarimetry. The early period was dominated by circularly polarized radars for propagation research and at S band (frequency near 3 GHz) for hail detection. By the mid to late 70s, a paradigm shift occurred which led to the dominance of linear polarizations with applications to slant path attenuation prediction as well as estimation of rain rates and inferences of precipitation physics. The period from the early 1980s to 1995 can be considered as the “golden” period of rapid research that brought in meteorologists, cloud physicists, and hydrologists. This article describes the evolution of this technology from the vantage point of the authors. Their personal reflections and “behind the scenes” descriptions offer a glimpse into the inner workings at several key institutions which cannot be found elsewhere.
Highlights
The electromagnetic wave is defined by amplitude, frequency, and polarization state.These properties change because of interaction with precipitation, and relating these changes to particle microphysical states including Doppler velocity and spectrum width is the main purpose of dual-polarized Doppler weather radar
There is a rich history of radar in meteorology since World War II for which we defer to the Battan Memorial Conference Proceedings published in Radar in Meteorology [1] edited by the late David Atlas
Our objective in this article is much less ambitious in that we describe the early years of dual-polarization research in meteorology and related radiowave propagation starting from the mid-1970s to about the early 1990s
Summary
The electromagnetic wave is defined by amplitude, frequency, and polarization state. These properties change because of interaction with precipitation, and relating these changes to particle microphysical states including Doppler velocity and spectrum width is the main purpose of dual-polarized Doppler weather radar. Effects of the transmission matrix on circular polarization radar observables resulted in depolarization of the transmitted wave due to pure differential phase shift in heavier rain that made it difficult to separate the backscatter effects from the effects due to propagation, as modelled in [22]. It was not until a decade later when Anthony Holt and David Bebbington from the UK re-analyzed the Alberta Research Council (ARC) data and devised a method for “correcting”. This book contains two hundred pages on radar polarimetry for meteorological observations
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