Time Resolved Reflectivity Measurements of Convective Clouds

National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Investigations of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) mission aims to document convective mass flux through changes in the radar reflectivity (Delta Z) in convective cores captured by a constellation of three Ka-band radars sampling the same convective cells over intervals of 30, 90, and 120 s. Here, high spatiotemporal resolution observations of convective cores from surface-based radars that use agile sampling techniques are used to evaluate aspects of the INCUS measurement approach using real observations. Analysis of several convective cells confirms that large coherent Delta Z structure with measurable signal (>5 dB) can occur in less than 30 s and are correlated with underlying convective motions. The analysis indicates that the INCUS mission radar footprint and along track sampling are adequate to capture most of the desirable Delta Z signals. This unique demonstration of reflectivity time-lapse provides the framework for estimating convective mass flux independent from Doppler techniques with future radar observations.

Automated summary

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Investigations of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) mission aims to measure convective mass flux using changes in radar reflectivity. This study evaluates the INCUS measurement approach using high spatiotemporal resolution observations from surface-based radars, and confirms its effectiveness.