Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2779
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2779
18 Oct 2024
 | 18 Oct 2024
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT).

Characterization of surface clutter signal in presence of orography for a spaceborne conically scanning W-band Doppler radar

Francesco Manconi, Alessandro Battaglia, and Pavlos Kollias

Abstract. The Earth's surface radar reflection is one of the most important signals received by spaceborne radar systems. It is used in several scientific applications including geolocation, terrain classification, and path-integrated attenuation estimation. A simulator based on the ray tracing approach has been developed to reproduce the clutter reflectivity and the Doppler velocity signal for a conically scanning spaceborne Doppler radar system. The simulator exploits topographic information through a raster digital elevation model, land types from a regional classification database, and a normalized radar surface cross‐section look-up table. The simulator is applied to the WInd VElocity Radar Nephoscop (WIVERN) mission, which proposes a conically scanning W-band Doppler radar to study in-cloud winds. Using an orbital model, detailed simulations for conical scans over the Piedmont region of Italy that offers a variety of landscape conditions are presented. The results highlight the strong departure of the reflectivity and Doppler velocity profiles in the presence of marked orography and the significant gradient in the surface radar backscattering properties. The simulations demonstrate the limitations and advantages of using the surface Doppler velocity over land as an antenna-pointing characterization technique. The simulations represent the full strength range of the surface radar clutter over land surfaces for the WIVERN radar. The surface clutter tool applies to other spaceborne radar missions such as the nadir pointing EarthCARE and CloudSat cloud profiling radars, or the cross-track scanning GPM precipitation radars.

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Francesco Manconi, Alessandro Battaglia, and Pavlos Kollias

Status: open (until 08 Dec 2024)

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Francesco Manconi, Alessandro Battaglia, and Pavlos Kollias

Data sets

ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Version 3 Jet Propulsion Laboratory https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/GDEM.asp

Francesco Manconi, Alessandro Battaglia, and Pavlos Kollias

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Short summary
The paper aims at studying the ground reflection, or clutter, of the signal from a spaceborne radar in the context of ESA's WIVERN mission, which will observe in-cloud winds. Using topography and land type data, with a model of the satellite orbit and rotating antenna, simulations of scans have been run over Italy's Piedmont region. These measurements cover the full range of the ground clutter over land for WIVERN, and allowed for analyses on the precision and accuracy of velocity observations.