Measuring Hydrometeors Using a Precipitation Microphysical Characteristics Sensor: Sampling Effect of Different Bin Sizes on Drop Size Distribution Parameters

Abstract

In order to improve the measurement of precipitation microphysical characteristics sensor (PMCS), the sampling process of raindrops by PMCS based on a particle-by-particle Monte-Carlo model was simulated to discuss the effect of different bin sizes on DSD measurement, and the optimum sampling bin sizes for PMCS were proposed based on the simulation results. The simulation results of five sampling schemes of bin sizes in four rain-rate categories show that the raw capture DSD has a significant fluctuation variation influenced by the capture probability, whereas the appropriate sampling bin size and width can reduce the impact of variation of raindrop number on DSD shape. A field measurement of a PMCS, an OTT PARSIVEL disdrometer, and a tipping bucket rain Gauge shows that the rain-rate and rainfall accumulations have good consistencies between PMCS, OTT, and Gauge; the DSD obtained by PMCS and OTT has a good agreement; the probability of N0, μ, and Λ shows that there is a good agreement between the Gamma parameters of PMCS and OTT; the fitted μ-Λ and Z-R relationship measured by PMCS is close to that measured by OTT, which validates the performance of PMCS on rain-rate, rainfall accumulation, and DSD related parameters.