Assessment of an adjustment factor to model radar range dependent error

Quantitative radar precipitation estimates are affected by errors determined by many causes such as radar miscalibration, range degradation, attenuation, ground clutter, variability of Z-R relation, variability of drop size distribution, vertical air motion, anomalous propagation and beam-blocking. Range degradation ( including beam broadening and sampling of precipitation at an increasing altitude) and signal attenuation, determine a range dependent behavior of error. The aim of this work is to model the range-dependent error through an adjustment factor derived from the G/R ratio trend against the range, where G and R are the corresponding rain gauge and radar rainfall amounts computed at each rain gauge location. Since range degradation and signal attenuation effects are negligible close to the radar, resultsshowthatwithin 40 km from radar the overall range error is independent of the distance from Polar 55C and no range-correction is needed. Nevertheless, up to this distance, the G/R ratiocan showa concave trend with the range, which is due to the melting layer interception by the radar beam during stratiform events.