Atmospheric radar sounding

Abstract

Monostatic and bistatic radar techniques for the measurement of the structure of volume targets in the troposphere and lower stratosphere are reviewed. The targets considered are thin turbulent layers in the lower stratosphere and rain in the troposphere. The measurements of scattering from thin turbulent layers show that layers are generally detected at or near the tropopause, and in 31 out of 34 sets of measurements, layers were detected above the tropopause in the lower 10 km of the stratosphere. The threshold for turbulent layer detection corresponds to an equivalent thickness product of ten to the minus 13th power times the cube root of m at a range of 100 km and for layers with less than 1000 m thickness. The measurement of scattering by rain shows that in the New England area both convective and widespread rain consists of a number of small cells. On average, the cells appear to have a half-intensity width of 3 to 4 km as measured with a radar system with a 1.8 km resolution cell size for cells at 100 km range.