The enigma of spurious echoes: Enhancing phase transition height detection in shallow convective precipitation with GPM DPR
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core satellite’s Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) provides new insights into detecting solid-to-liquid phase transition heights of precipitation particles. However, significant anomalies can be found in the “binMixedPhaseTop” parameter within its official Level 2 data products during shallow convective precipitation events. Statistical analysis of the Yangtze and Huai River Basins from 2014 to 2023 reveals that the anomaly rate for shallow convective precipitation is 64.94%, far exceeding those for convective (0.61%) and stratiform (0.48%) precipitation. Further investigation demonstrates that the warm-rain process characteristic of shallow convective systems lacks a distinct solid-to-liquid phase transition layer, leading to algorithmic misinterpretations. An improved identification algorithm for “binMixedPhaseTop” is proposed to address this problem. It incorporates additional checks to ensure that the phase-transition height is only identified when a melting layer is present, thereby preventing misjudgments and redundant computations. The enhanced version is validated against 10-year observations from South China (2014–2023), demonstrating 91% anomaly suppression through extreme deviation truncation. This study highlights the need for algorithm refinement to accurately detect phase-change heights in different precipitation types, thereby enhancing the reliability of the “binMixedPhaseTop” product for convective precipitation detection.
Institution: National University of Defense Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,200
OpenAlex ID: W4411401904