摘要
In this study, the variation of radio refractivity with respect to temperature and moisture is analyzed. Also, the effects of vertical gradients in temperature and moisture on the propagation paths of electromagnetic waves of weather radar are examined for several sites across the United States using several years of sounding data from the National Weather Service. The ray path is important for identifying storm characteristics and for properly using the radar data in initializing numerical weather prediction models. It is found that during the warm season the radio refractivity gradient is more sensitive to moisture gradients than to temperature gradients. Ray paths from the commonly accepted vertical ray path model are compared to a ray path computed from a stepwise ray tracing algorithm using data from actual soundings. For the sample of about 16 000 soundings examined, we find that only a small fraction of the ray paths diverge significantly from those calculated using a ray path model based on the US Standard Atmosphere. While the problem of ray dueting in the presence of a temperature inversion is fairly well known, we identify the presence of a strong vertical moisture gradient as the culprit in the majority of the cases where significant deviations occurred.
In this study, the variation of radio refractivity with respect to temperature and moisture is analyzed. Also, the effects of vertical gradients in temperature and moisture on the propagation paths of electromagnetic waves of weather radar are examined for several sites across the United States using several years of sounding data from the National Weather Service. The ray path is important for identifying storm characteristics and for properly using the radar data in initializing numerical weather prediction models. It is found that during the warm season the radio refractivity gradient is more sensitive to moisture gradients than to temperature gradients. Ray paths from the commonly accepted vertical ray path model are compared to a ray path computed from a stepwise ray tracing algorithm using data from actual soundings. For the sample of about 16 000 soundings examined, we find that only a small fraction of the ray paths diverge significantly from those calculated using a ray path model based on the US Standard Atmosphere. While the problem of ray dueting in the presence of a temperature inversion is fairly well known, we identify the presence of a strong vertical moisture gradient as the culprit in the majority of the cases where significant deviations occurred.
基金
U. S. NSF Grant Nos. ATM-0331756, ATM-0331594, ATM-0530814 and EEC-0313747, and by DOT-FAA Grant NA17RJ1227-01
the National Natural Science Foun- dation of China under Grant Nos. 40620120437 and 40505022
