Radar echoes at vertical incidence from a horizontally stratified atmosphere

✍ Scribed by I. C. Browne

• Book ID: 104571410
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1953
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 250 KB
• Volume: 79
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0035-9009
• DOI: 10.1002/qj.49707933915

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

An exceptional radar echo of long duration which was observed from the zenith of an apparently clear sky is described, and it is shown that the height of origin of the echo was close to that of an anticylonic ‘inversion’ which was present at the time. It is deduced that the echo cannot have been due to a layer of water or dust haze at the inversion, but that it must have been caused by an abrupt discontinuity in the lapse rates of temperature, humidity, or both. If changes in humidity alone are taken into account, then in order to explain the observed intensity of the echo, it is necessary to suppose that the dew point changed by 15°F through a layer not more than 300 ft deep. It is suggested that more use might be made of radar for investigating such tropospheric discontinuities.