Quantitative analysis of incoherent polarimetric decomposition techniques for weather radar data

Weather events represent volumetric radar targets and they can be described only in a statistical way. To perform a proper analysis we must therefore use descriptors of the second order, such as the covariance or the coherence matrix, equivalent from the polarimetric point of view. In this paper we present a method to extract information from weather radar data based on Incoherent Target Decomposition techniques (ICTD). The proposed method represents an alternative to the classical methods based on radar reflectivity. The proposed technique is based on the decomposition of the covariance matrix estimated from the received polarimetric radar signal.