Atmospheric radar

A programmable circuit effective to generate an output signal that corresponds to a meteorological property of an atmospheric target, the programmable circuit comprising:

• a coherency matrix generator module effective to receive voltages that correspond to backscattered radar signal measurements of the atmospheric target from an antenna and generate a coherency matrix;
• an eigenvalue calculator module effective to receive the coherency matrix and calculate eigenvalues of the coherency matrix;
• an eigenvalue variable calculator module effective to receive the eigenvalues and calculate eigenvalue meteorological variables from the eigenvalues;
• and
• an atmosphere display module effective to receive the eigenvalue meteorological variables and generate the output signal that corresponds to the meteorological property of the atmospheric target in response.

An atmospheric radar system comprising:

• an antenna array effective to transmit a wave toward an atmospheric target and receive a reflected wave in response, where the reflected wave includes voltages that correspond to backscattered radar signal measurements;
• a display;
• a processor configured to be in communication with the antenna array and the display;
• where the processor includes
• a coherency matrix generator module effective to receive the voltages and generate a coherency matrix;
• an eigenvalue calculator module effective to receive the coherency matrix and calculate eigenvalues of the coherency matrix;
• an eigenvalue variable calculator module effective to receive the eigenvalues and calculate eigenvalue meteorological variables from the eigenvalues;
• and
• an atmosphere display module effective to receive the eigenvalue meteorological variables and generate an output signal that corresponds to the meteorological property of the atmospheric target based on the calculated eigenvalue meteorological variables;
• the display effective to receive the output signal and render a displayed radar image in response.