Validation of torus mapping dealiasing method on Doppler velocities for use in numerical weather prediction

In this paper, a validation of the torus mapping dealiasing method for observations of Doppler velocities by meteorological radars is presented for the purpose of using dealiased data in data assimilation for operational numerical weather prediction. Analysis was done on a large sample of Doppler velocity data from German and Slovenian radar networks preprocessed by the Operational Program for Exchange of Weather Radar Information (OPERA). The quality of dealiased data is assessed by a comparison with collocated radiosonde and aircraft observations and also through analysis of differences between observations and corresponding values from a regional numerical weather prediction model. Performance of model’s quality control on dealiased data is also evaluated. We show that the torus mapping method is a robust procedure which produces radar datasets of comparable quality to aircraft and radiosonde data and has potential for operational applications in data assimilation.