A Validation Procedure for a Polarimetric Weather Radar Signal Simulator

A simulator of weather radar signals can be exploited as a useful reference for many applications, such as weather forecasting and nowcasting models or for training artificial intelligence systems designed to optimize the trajectory of aircrafts with the purpose to reduce flight hazard and fuel consumption. However, before being used, it must be accurately examined under different operating conditions, in order to evaluate the consistency of the outputs produced. In this paper, we present a validation procedure for a newly developed polarimetric weather radar simulator (POWERS). The goal is to assess the ability of the simulator to deal with any kind of input data, be they simulated and real raindrop-size distributions, or outputs generated by numerical weather prediction models. Three different approaches are proposed, each providing a connection between meteorological inputs and the radar observables simulated by POWERS. The analysis is carried out in the case of rainfall, both at S- and X-bands.