A Variational Multiple–Doppler Radar Three-Dimensional Wind Synthesis Method and Its Impacts on Thermodynamic Retrieval

Abstract

Abstract A multiple–Doppler radar synthesis method is developed to recover the three-dimensional wind field. In this method the solutions are obtained by variationally adjusting the winds to satisfy a series of constraints in weak formats. Among them, the primary ones are multiple-radar radial velocity observations, the anelastic continuity equation, the vertical vorticity equation, the background wind, and spatial smoothness terms. The retrieved wind products are at two time levels, and can be readily applied to deduce the information about the pressure and temperature through the use of the thermodynamic retrieval algorithm, in which the temporal derivatives of the wind fields are required. Experiments using model-simulated data are conducted, from which two major findings are obtained. First, the wind field along and near the radar baseline can still be recovered. This is a major advantage over the traditional approach. Therefore, the proposed method is capable of providing uninterrupted observations o...