Abstract. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) facility has been at the forefront of millimeter-wavelength radar development and operations since the late 1990s. The operational performance of the ARM cloud radar network is very high; however, the calibration of the historical record is not well established. Here, a well-characterized spaceborne 94 GHz cloud profiling radar (CloudSat) is used to characterize the calibration of the ARM cloud radars. The calibration extends from 2007 to 2017 and includes both fixed and mobile deployments. Collectively, over 43 years of ARM profiling cloud radar observations are compared to CloudSat and the calibration offsets are reported as a function of time using a sliding window of 6 months. The study also provides the calibration offsets for each operating mode of the ARM cloud radars. Overall, significant calibration offsets are found that exceed the uncertainty of the technique (1–2 dB). The findings of this study are critical to past, ongoing, and planned studies of cloud and precipitation and should assist the DOE ARM to build a legacy decadal ground-based cloud radar dataset for global climate model validation.

occurrence, formation, and decay? What is the climatology of severe weather? Answers to these 28 questions have value on their own and also invariably trigger more questions about the processes 29 causing these patterns as well as suggest some answers. They also have considerable pedagogical 30 value to illustrate in the classroom the impacts on precipitation of different processes such as 31 sea-land breezes, topography, and seasons. 32In this work, U.S. mosaics of radar data from 1996 to 2015 are used to demonstrate the 33 possibilities offered by such a data set. Three topics are touched: a) climatologies and daily 34 cycles of precipitation and convection, and what they can teach us about precipitation 35 mechanisms; b) the spatial and temporal distribution of the appearance and occurrence of 36convection, and what it reveals on the importance of surface terrain properties for these events; 37 and c) the power and challenges of looking for a small signal in even such a large dataset using 38 the influence of weekly activity cycles and of cities on precipitation as an illustration. 39 CAPSULE 40Where the radar climatology of weather echoes is used to reveal how surface properties 41 shape precipitation occurrence and to explore the ease or difficulty to unambiguously detect 42 these effects. 43 3 Precipitation climatology and radars 44Radar has historically transformed the way we study storms thanks to its ability to take 45 frequent and regular 3-D measurements even through clouds and precipitation. As a result, it is 46 commonly used both operationally for weather surveillance as well as for research to help 47 understand the dynamics and microphysical processes of atmospheric phenomena (Atlas et al. 48 1990; Wakimoto and Srivastava 2003; Fabry 2015). 49The first national Doppler radar network in the world was deployed in the United States 50 in the mid-1990s. More importantly, a framework and process for monitoring and maintaining 51 radar data quality was implemented and adhered to since. From late 1995 onwards, the 52 reflectivity data from all these radars have been made into national mosaics by a variety of 53 actors, including private companies, research institutes, and the National Weather Service itself. 54A unique dataset now exists to study radar echoes collected by the same radars over a period of 55 more than 20 years (and counting) over the contiguous United States. 56Though country-wide climatological information on precipitation exists, for example 57 from the US Climate Normals (Applequist et al. 2012, Arguez et al. 2012, the information 58 available is not as rich as it could be. As an illustration, we challenge all readers to find the 59 These questions both complicate the interpretation of a radar echo climatology and can also be 88 partially answered by it (see the sidebar on Data, Processing, and Quality Issues for some 89 details). In parallel, radar has unique strengths, in particular for measuring the coverage and 90 instantaneous intensity of precipitation, more so than for quant...

Abstract. Shallow oceanic precipitation variability is documented using three second-generation radar systems located at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Eastern North Atlantic observatory: ARM zenith radar (KAZR2), the Ka-band scanning ARM cloud radar (KaSACR2) and the X-band scanning ARM precipitation radar (XSAPR2). First, the radar systems and measurement post-processing techniques, including sea-clutter removal and calibration against colocated disdrometer and Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) observations are described. Then, we present how a combination of profiling radar and lidar observations can be used to estimate adaptive (in both time and height) parameters that relate radar reflectivity (Z) to precipitation rate (R) in the form Z=αRβ, which we use to estimate precipitation rate over the domain observed by XSAPR2. Furthermore, constant altitude plan position indicator (CAPPI) gridded XSAPR2 precipitation rate maps are also constructed. Hourly precipitation rate statistics estimated from the three radar systems differ because KAZR2 is more sensitive to shallow virga and XSAPR2 suffers from less attenuation than KaSACR2 and as such is best suited for characterizing intermittent and mesoscale-organized precipitation. Further analysis reveals that precipitation rate statistics obtained by averaging 12 h of KAZR2 observations can be used to approximate that of a 40 km radius domain averaged over similar time periods. However, it was determined that KAZR2 is unsuitable for characterizing domain-averaged precipitation rate over shorter periods. But even more fundamentally, these results suggest that these observations cannot produce an objective domain precipitation estimate and that the simultaneous use of forward simulators is desirable to guide model evaluation studies.

Convective motions and hydrometeor microphysical properties are highly sought-after parameters for evaluating atmospheric numerical models. With most of Earth’s surface covered by water, space-borne Doppler radars are ideal for acquiring such measurements at a global scale. While these systems have proven to be useful tools for retrieving cloud microphysical and dynamical properties from the ground, their adequacy and specific requirements for spaceborne operation still need to be evaluated. Comprehensive forward simulations enable us to assess the advantages and drawbacks of six different Doppler radar architectures currently planned or under consideration by space agencies for the study of cloud dynamics. Radar performance is examined against the state-of-the-art numerical model simulations of well-characterized shallow and deep, continental, and oceanic convective cases. Mean Doppler velocity (MDV) measurements collected at multiple frequencies (13, 35, and 94 GHz) provide complementary information in deep convective cloud systems. The high penetration capability of the 13 GHz radar enables to obtain a complete, albeit horizontally under-sampled, view of deep convective storms. The smaller instantaneous field of view (IFOV) of the 35 GHz radar captures more precise information about the location and size of convective updrafts above 5–8 km height of most systems which were determined in the portion of storms where the mass flux peak is typically located. Finally, the lower mean Doppler velocity uncertainty of displaced phase center antenna (DPCA) radars makes them an ideal system for studying microphysics in shallow convection and frontal systems, as well as ice and mixed-phase clouds. It is demonstrated that a 94 GHz DCPA system can achieve retrieval errors as low as 0.05–0.15 mm for raindrop volume-weighted mean diameter and 25% for rime fraction (for a −10 dBZ echo).

Abstract. The EarthCARE mission aims to probe the Earth's atmosphere by measuring cloud and aerosol profiles using its active instruments, the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) and Atmospheric Lidar (ATLID). The correct identification of hydrometeors and aerosols from atmospheric profiles is an important step in retrieving the properties of clouds, aerosols and precipitation. Ambiguities in the nature of atmospheric targets can be removed using the synergy of collocated radar and lidar measurements, which is based on the complementary spectral response of radar and lidar relative to atmospheric targets present in the profiles. The instruments are sensitive to different parts of the particle size distribution, and provide independent but overlapping information in optical and microwave wavelengths. ATLID is sensitive to aerosols and small cloud particles and CPR to large ice particles, snowflakes and raindrops. It is therefore possible to better classify atmospheric targets when collocated radar and lidar measurements exist compared to a single instrument. The cloud phase, precipitation and aerosol type within the column sampled by the two instruments can then be identified. ATLID-CPR Target Classification (AC-TC) is the product created for this purpose by combining the ATLID Target Classification (A-TC) and CPR Target Classification (C-TC). AC-TC is crucial for the subsequent synergistic retrieval of cloud, aerosol and precipitation properties. AC-TC builds upon previous target classifications using CloudSat/CALIPSO synergy, while providing richer target classification using the enhanced capabilities of EarthCARE's instruments: CPR's Doppler velocity measurements to distinguish snow and rimed snow from ice clouds, and ATLID's lidar ratio measurements to objectively discrimination between different aerosol species and optically thin ice clouds. In this paper we first describe how the single-instrument A-TC and C-TC products are derived from ATLID and CPR measurements. Then the AC-TC product, which combines the A-TC and C-TC classifications using a synergistic decision matrix, is presented. Simulated EarthCARE observations are used to test the processors generating the target classifications, with results presented using the Halifax scene. Finally, the target classifications are evaluated by quantifying the fractions of ice and snow, liquid clouds, rain and aerosols in the atmosphere that can be successfully identified by each instrument and their synergy. We show that radar-lidar synergy helps better detect ice and snow, with ATLID detecting radiatively-important optically thin cirrus and cloud-tops while CPR penetrates most deep and highly concentrated ice clouds. The detection of rain and drizzle is entirely due to C-TC, while that of liquid clouds and aerosols is due to A-TC. The evaluation also shows that simple assumptions can be made to compensate for when the instruments are obscured by extinction (ATLID) or surface clutter and multiple scattering (CPR); this allows for the recovery of a majority of liquid cloud not detected by the active instruments.