K-band scanning cloud radar

The MPI's cloud radar is named KATRIN, in memory of Katrin Lehman, who was a member of the Barbados Cloud Observation Project. She died in a tragic hiking accident during the development-phase of the radar.

KATRIN provides detailed information about the cloud coverage and the structure of single clouds in a 15 km radius above and around the radar site. The values derived from the radar on a routine basis are the radar reflectivity, the line of sight velocity of targets, the spectral width and the linear depolarization ration.

The radar is a scanning Ka-Band (35.5 GHz) polarized Doppler cloud radar with high sensitivity. The antenna can be scanned with a full 360 degree in azimuth and ± 90 degree in elevation. The 1.2 m antenna has a beamwidth of 0.5 degrees.

The radar reaches full sensitivity at a range of 500m, hence provides a good cloud base detection capability. The high range resolution of up to 10 m (typically 30 m) together with the narrow beam width allows for fine scale observations of the cloud structure. The Doppler velocity resolution of up to 0.002 m/s provides an insight into the turbulent fine structure of clouds. The radar receives the linear polarized signal in co- and cross polarized orientation and thus provides the Linear Depolarization Ratio (LDR) that is a very helpful information to discriminate between different target types.

The system is fully automated and remotely controlled. The latest quicklooks of KATRIN, including reflectivity, radial velocity and LDR, can be found on the FTP server.