Abstract
Radar was developed during World War II to identify and track warships and aircraft. In this application rain sometimes obscured the target and means were sought to mitigate rain effects and distinguish the signal from weather targets. However, in meteorology, characterizing and tracking storms is the primary use of radar. Many functions of operational meteorology depend on conventional C-band (5 cm wavelength) or S-band (10 cm) incoherent radars. The letters associated with the frequencies have their origin in wartime security needs—there is no logical designation. Their location in the frequency spectrum is marked in Fig. 6.1. Meteorologists tend to refer to the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in terms of wavelength. Since the 1970s and the implementation of high speed digital data processing to indicate the air motion toward or away from the radar, Doppler (or coherent) radar has played an increasingly large role in meteorology. It is certain to become the standard as new applications with increasingly sophisticated systems are developed. This chapter outlines some of the important principles and applications of radar. More background and detail can be found in texts by Skolnik (1970), Battan (1973), Doviak et al. (1986), and Doviak and Zrnic (1984).
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© 1986 American Meteorological Society
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Burgess, D., Ray, P.S. (1986). Principles of Radar. In: Ray, P.S. (eds) Mesoscale Meteorology and Forecasting. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-935704-20-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-935704-20-1_6
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