The spatial and temporal sampling errors inherent in low resolution radar estimates of rainfall

Abstract

Abstract The errors introduced into radar estimates of rainfall by making observations at spatial and temporal resolutions that are coarse compared with precipitation systems' characteristic length and time scales are explored in this study. High resolution (200 m, 50 s) X‐band radar data from 48 mid‐latitude precipitation events are downgraded progressively in spatial and temporal resolution so that estimates of this sampling error can be made by comparing 10 min rainfall accumulations of this data to accumulations calculated from the original high resolution data. The analysis shows these errors to be of significant magnitude. For 2 km and 5 min sampling, this error varies from 17 to 64% of the mean rainfall accumulation. A relationship is shown between the error introduced from the reduction in spatial resolution and the characteristic length scale of the precipitation system along with a metric of precipitation intensity. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society