Radar measurements for the article "Dynamic differential reflectivity calibration using vertical profiles in rain and snow"

Dataset documentation

The archives in hdf5 format provided at this link contain the datasets used in the manuscript Dynamic differential reflectivity calibration using vertical profiles in rain and snow, submitted to Remote Sensing (MDPI) by Alfonso Ferrone and Alexis Berne in 2020.

File content

Each file is structured as a table, with each column referring to a specific variable and each row containing a different realization (in space or time). The set of available variables is campaign dependent, and the possibilities are:

• idx, and integer index that starts at 1 for the first scan of the dataset and increases by 1 for every successive scan;

• t, the timestamp of the scan, in seconds since seconds since Jan 01, 1970;

• r or rg (depending on the file), the distance from the radar in meters;

• az, the azimuth angle in degrees;

• el, the elevation angle in degrees;

• zdr, the uncalibrated differential reflectivity, in dB;

• zh, the horizontal reflectivity, in dBZ;

• rhovh or rho, the co-polar correlation coefficient, unitless;

• snr_h or snr, the signal to noise ratio for the horizontal channel in dB;

• snrv, the signal to noise ratio for the vertical channel, in dB,

• ngates, the number of unique range gates.

For the comparison of the data collected by MXPol and DX50 during the PAYERNE campaign, two auxiliary variables were added to the archives:

• x the horizontal distance from the current radar, computed on a line passing through the location of two radars;

• z the vertical distance from the current radar.

Usage

The dataset are provided in the the Hierarchical Data Format version 5 (HDF5), an open source file format, supported by several programming language.

They archives were created using the vaex library for Python 3:

https://github.com/vaexio/vaex

The function vaex.open from the same library can be used for accessing the archives and converting them to vaex.DataFrame.

Campaign-specific information

Some of the parameters associated to the variables included in the archives may change depending on the campaign. The following subsection provide a summary of these information.

dataframe_HYMEX_2013_from_20130907-040344_to_20131105-175944.hdf5

Contains PPI scans at 90° elevation for the HYMEX campaign.

Location information:

• Latitude: 44.61° N

• Longitude: 4.55° E

• Altitude: 604 m.a.s.l.

Technical information:

• Radar Frequency: 9.41 GHz

• Theoretical 3 dB angular beamwidth of the antenna: 1.45°

Scan setup:

• Range resolution: 75 m

• Range to the first gate: 204.3 m

Processsing parameters:

• Clutter filtering: OFF

• Minimum rhohv: 0.6

• Attenuation correction: Z-PHI method

• Note on reflectivity calibration: The original manufacturer calibration constant was 7.56 dBZ. The value used here derives from comparison with disdrometers during the HYMEX campaign.

dataframe_PAYERNE_2014_from_20140321-160016_to_20140519-085808.hdf5

Contains PPI scans at 90° elevation performed by MXPol during the PAYERNE campaign.

Location information:

• Latitude: 46.81° N

• Longitude: 6.94° E

• Altitude: 496 m.a.s.l.

Technical information:

• Radar Frequency: 9.41 GHz

• Theoretical 3 dB angular beamwidth of the antenna: 1.45°

Scan setup:

• Range resolution: 75 m

• Range to the first gate: 204.3 m

Processsing parameters:

• Clutter filtering: OFF

• Minimum rhohv: 0.6

• Attenuation correction: None

dataframe_DAVOS_2014_from_20140704-090224_to_20141231-105720.hdf5

Contains PPI scans at 90° elevation for the DAVOS campaign.

Location information:

• Latitude: 46.82° N

• Longitude: 9.82° E

• Altitude: 2220 m.a.s.l.

Technical information:

• Radar Frequency: 9.41 GHz

• Theoretical 3 dB angular beamwidth of the antenna: 1.45°

Scan setup:

• Range resolution: 75 m

• Range to the first gate: 204.3 m

Processsing parameters:

• Clutter filtering: OFF

• Minimum rhohv: 0.6

• Attenuation correction: None

dataframe_APRES3_from_20151207-123944_to_20160129-125856.hdf5

Contains PPI scans at 90° elevation for the APRES3 campaign.

Location information:

• Latitude: 66.66 S

• Longitude: 140.00 E

• Altitude: 40 m.a.s.l.

Technical information:

• Radar Frequency: 9.41 GHz

• Theoretical 3 dB angular beamwidth of the antenna: 1.45°

Scan setup:

• Range resolution: 75 m

• Range to the first gate: 354.3 m

Processsing parameters:

• Clutter filtering: OFF

• Minimum rhohv: 0.6

• Attenuation correction: None

dataframe_VALAIS_2016_from_20161104-154312_to_20170306-195912.hdf5

Contains PPI scans at 90° elevation for the VALAIS campaign.

Location information:

• Latitude: 46.12 N

• Longitude: 7.10 E

• Altitude: 460 m.a.s.l.

Technical information:

• Radar Frequency: 9.41 GHz

• Theoretical 3 dB angular beamwidth of the antenna: 1.27°

Scan setup:

• Range resolution: 30 m

• Range to the first gate: 226.95 m

Processsing parameters:

• Clutter filtering: OFF

• Minimum rhohv: 0.6

• Attenuation correction: None

dataframe_DX50_from_20140501-020000_to_20140524-015752.hdf5

Contains PPI scans at 90° elevation performed by DX50 during the PAYERNE campaign.

Location information:

• Latitude: 46.84° N

• Longitude: 6.92° E

• Altitude: 450 m.a.s.l.

Technical information:

• Radar Frequency: 9.459 GHz

• Theoretical 3 dB angular beamwidth of the antenna: 1.273°

Scan setup:

• Range resolution: 75 m

• Range to the first gate: 0.0 m

Processsing parameters:

• Clutter filtering: OFF

• Minimum rhohv: 0.0

• Attenuation correction: None

dataframe_DX50_RHI_201405.hdf5

Contains RHI scans from DX50 the PAYERNE campaign.

The remaining information equal to the ones listed for dataframe_DX50_from_20140501-020000_to_20140524-015752.hdf5.

dataframe_MXPol_RHI_201405.hdf5

Contains RHI scans from MXPol the PAYERNE campaign.

The remaining information is equal to the ones listed for dataframe_PAYERNE_2014_from_20140321-160016_to_20140519-085808.hdf5.