What causes ground clutter on doppler radar?

Answer 1

Usually this happens when they have doppler radar in clear air mode, not precipitation mode, that will cause ground clutter.

Answer 2

Radar Ground Clutter

Answer 3

Clear-air mode does not "cause" ground clutter, but ground clutter is more likely to be seen when a radar is operating in clear-air mode.

The presence of ground clutter no more indicates that the radar is functioning properly than the presence of gasoline in your gas tank indicates your engine is running.

The lowest tilt that USA NWS WSR-88 radars use is 0.5 degrees. It is rare for true-vector radar beams to consistently strike earth-bound objects even at that tilt. When they do (when very tall buildings or mountains are in the way, for example), the radar's computer is generally programmed to ignore them, and they will not appear on the radar images.

Anomalous propagation is the usual culprit. It is atmospheric conditions that cause the radar beams to bend:

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/247/

Answer 4

Ground clutter means reflections from the ground.When the radar is scanned keeping the elevation at zero degree,these reflections from the nearby ground,buidings will be predominent and will be shown as echoes.Experienced persons can differentiate these echoes from the cloud echoes.If the radar is scanned keeping the elevation angle more than one degree,most of the ground clutter will vanish.
If there are no clouds and hence no cloud echoes,the presence of this ground clutter will indicate that the radar is functioning normally.

Answer 5

Surface objects on the ground such as buildings. Most meteorologists are pros detemining ground clutters from atmospheric echoes.