The Cause of Night Clear Air Echo of S-band Weather Radar in Beijing

Abstract

S-band weather radar can often detect a large number of clear air echoes at night. However, there are different views on the mechanism of clear air echoes. According to characteristics of biological migration, combined with L-band radiosonde data and Beijing S-band weather radar data from 1 March to 18 October in 2018, changes of clear air echo reflectivity factor in different seasons and wind directions are analyzed to discuss causes of clear air echo. Firstly, characteristics of time variation of clear air echo are analyzed. The intensity of clear air echo in Beijing increases after sunset, weakens before sunrise, and changes little at night. The intensity of echo gradually increases from March to the middle of May, then weakens from July to the first ten days in August, and maintains at a high level since September. In vertical profiles, the fluctuation of high-level echoes, up to the altitude of 2 kilometers, is larger than that of low-level echoes, with an obviously seasonal variation. Secondly, by comparing the relationship between the wind direction and radar data in different periods of time, it is found that the echo is not consistent with the biological activity regularity. The entropy of radar data gray level co-occurrence matrix is also calculated, and there is no rule to follow the biology. Therefore, it is considered that the turbulence is the dominant cause of night clear air echo in Beijing. And then, radiosonde data show that the temperature lapse rate and wind shear are consistent with the seasonal variation of combined reflectivity factor at the altitude from 1 to 2 km. Finally, possible influence factors of clear air echo are inferred based on some phenomena observed.

Keywords

• clear air echo
• turbulence scattering
• biological migration