Sensitivity Analysis on Data Time Difference for Wind Fields Synthesis of Array Weather Radar

Abstract

Array weather radar (AWR), a kind of distributed phased array radar, includes at least three Phased Array Front Ends (PAFE). Every three PAFEs are grouped for synchronous scanning to ensure that the Data Time Difference (DTD) at the same point in the fine detection area is less than 2 s. This paper adopts the multiple-Doppler wind synthesis method to synthesize the wind field of the small-DTD AWR data and discusses the sensitivity analysis on the wind fields under the different DTDs. The analysis experiment includes the wind fields under two types of precipitation systems. One is a convective precipitation system with unstable airflow, and the other is a non-convective precipitation system with stable airflow. The statistical analysis showed that, due to the advection effect and intrinsic evolution of the precipitation systems, the bigger the DTD is, the bigger the wind field error is. When the DTD is greater than 24 s, the wind field obtained by the convective precipitation system has more errors. When the DTD is greater than 84 s, the wind field obtained by the non-convective precipitation system has more errors.