The EDOP radar system on the high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
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Abstract

The NASA ER-2 high-altitude (20 km) aircraft that emulates a satellite view of precipitation systems carries a variety of passive and active (lidar) remote sensing instruments. A new Doppler weather radar system at X band (9.6 GHz) called the ER-2 Doppler radar (EDOP) has been developed and flown on the ER-2 aircraft. EDOP is a fully coherent Doppler weather radar with fixed nadir and forward pointing (33?? off nadir) beams that map out Doppler winds and reflectivities in the vertical plane along the aircraft motion vector. Doppler winds from the two beams can be used to derive vertical and along-track air motions. In addition, the forward beam provides linear depolarization measurements that are useful in discriminating microphysical characteristics of the precipitation. This paper deals with a general description of the EDOP instrument including the measurement concept, the system configuration and hardware, and recently obtained data examples from the instrument. The combined remote sensing package on the ER-2, along with EDOP, provides a unique platform for simulating spaceborne remote sensing of precipitation.
Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title The EDOP radar system on the high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft
Series title Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
DOI 10.1175/1520-0426(1996)013<0795:TERSOT>2.0.CO;2
Volume 13
Issue 4
Year Published 1996
Language English
Publisher American Meteorological Society
Contributing office(s) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Description 15 p.
First page 795
Last page 809
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