Quality control techniques for scanning ARM radar
Authors
Adam Theisen — Argonne National Laboratory
Scott Matthew Collis — Argonne National Laboratory
Scott Giangrande — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Randy A. Peppler — University of Oklahoma
Category
Infrastructure & Outreach
Description
The introduction of the new precipitation radars procured through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has resulted in a need to develop innovative quality control methods to analyze the data in a timely and effective manner. Techniques have been employed to gather a subset of data from each radar volume in order to determine the general quality of the data. Some of these techniques include using point target reflectivities, vertical profiles of differential reflectivity, comparisons with vertical profiling instruments at the Southern Great Plains Central Facility, and comparison with precipitation instruments at the Central Facility.
Comparing the precipitation estimates derived from the radar reflectivity to the precipitation instruments at the surface has led the Data Quality Office to additionally investigate the individual performance of each precipitation instrument. Data from each precipitation instrument were gathered over 2011 and analyzed. Each instrument was compared to a baseline instrument at each site, in most cases a MET tipping-bucket rain gauge. This analysis was able to provide an idea of how each instrument performed relative to one another in differing conditions.