Signal Processing Techniques Used in the ARM 8-mm Cloud Radars

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program’s Millimeter Wavelength Cloud Radars (MMCRs) are a new generation of research tools designed to provide high temporal and spacial resolution measurements of the clouds above the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) sites. The last of the four field sites for the MMCRs, located on Manus Island, Papau New Guinea, will be operating in 1999, completing the first phase of installations. Other sites already in operation include the Southern Great Plains (SGP), the North Slope of Alaska (NSA), and the Republic of Nauru. The use of large aperture high-gain antennas, coherent pulse integration, and pulse compression provide a radar with excellent sensitivity (Moran et al. 1998; Clothiaux et al. 1999). These techniques each require special processing to improve the data products and reduce the influence of unwanted side effects. In this paper, we briefly examine the MMCR signal processing techniques that combine to provide accurate estimates of radar reflectivity.