Classification of tropical rain regimes by the 3-dimensional properties of reflectivity fields

Daniel Rosenfeld*, Eyal Amitai, David B. Wolff

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Tropical rain occurs in various types of rain systems. Their classification into rain regimes is useful for a variety of applications, such as the determination of the vertical distribution of latent heat released, and for improving schemes of quantitative retrievals of rainfall by remote sensing from ground based and space borne instruments. Rain systems are typically classified by their dynamical features - convective or stratiform, and by their microphysical processes - maritime or continental. A primary motivation for the classification is its immediate relevance to changes in effective reflectivity - rain intensity (Ze-R) relationships for the various rain regimes. Specifically, this study defines and quantifies three characteristics of rain fields which are effective in improving the accuracy of rainfall measurements with radar and in determining the nature of the rain and its dynamical properties. The parameters are: a) horizontal reflectivity gradients, gradr(Z); b) the depth of the convection, as scaled by the Effective Efficiency, Ee; and c) the fraction of stratiform precipitation as discerned by the existence of a bright band, BBF.

Original languageEnglish
Pages758-760
Number of pages3
StatePublished - 1993
Event26th International Conference on Radar Meteorology - Norman, OK, USA
Duration: 24 May 199328 May 1993

Conference

Conference26th International Conference on Radar Meteorology
CityNorman, OK, USA
Period24/05/9328/05/93

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