Obtaining high resolution polarimetric radar based precipitation estimates in Skjern catchment, Denmark for hydrological modeling

Abstract:

Precipitation is the main driving force for the terrestrial water cycle and therefore plays a critical role in determining the water budget at catchment scale. Traditionally, rain gauges are used to measure precipitation on the ground surface for hydrological modeling. However, the number of rain gauges in Denmark has significantly decreased in recent years, and it is no longer possible to represent the spatial heterogeneity of rainfall only by interpolating the rain gauge data given the current gauge density in Skjern catchment, Denmark. The quality of simulated hydrological patterns using such rain gauge based products is visibly decreased. Weather radar scans the atmosphere with large areal coverage and high spatial and temporal resolution, which makes it an ideal tool to overcome this problem. The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) operates C-band radars over the country. It has been previously attempted to use the single-polarization radar located at Rømø to estimate precipitation in Skjern catchment; however, the hydrological improvement by adding the single-polarization radar data was marginal due to many restrictions. A new radar located at Virring with upgraded dual-polarization technology opens new possibilities to further improve the precipitation estimation at Skjern catchment. New parameters retrieved from the Virring radar will be used to develop more advanced quantitative precipitation estimation algorithms which is an important supplement to the existing algorithm called ARNE. The development of the new algorithm will be based on the Open Source Library for Weather Radar Data Processing (WRadLib). The results of hydrological models using such product are expected to better close the water budget and improve the simulated hydrological pattern such as the land surface temperature.