Variability in rainfall information derived from collocated microwave links

In the field of hydrology, there is a significant demand for high spatial-temporal resolution of rainfall information that can be met by commercial microwave links (CMLs). CMLs are commonly used as a backhaul of telecommunications network with favourable spatial coverage especially in urbanized areas. CMLs are point-to-point radio connections operating at frequencies where attenuation of electromagnetic waves can be related to the rainfall intensity.

The ability of CMLs to assess rainfall intensity is determined by hardware parameters and path lengths of CMLs. The CML operates at various frequencies with horizontal or vertical polarization, moreover, link paths have lengths ranging from hundreds of meters up to kilometres. The characteristics of the rainfall needs to be reflected as they have impact on the errors (de Vos et al., 2019). Even collocated CMLs can detect considerably dissimilar rainfall information. To increase effectivity of rainfall information retrieval it is crucial to understand uncertainties arising from diversity of CML characteristics.

This study evaluates collocated CMLs that are assumed to be affected by the same weather condition. Having identical CML characteristics (as well as the propagations of the signals), it is expected to observe the same response patterns in the attenuated signals. Any disagreement could be caused by random error, sensitivity to the rainfall intensities, and/or hardware reaction to the condition (e.g. sensitivity of the antenna radome to the rainfall splash). Therefore, the role of arrangement of the direction of rainfall field advection and position of the collocated link paths is considered. The magnitude of disagreement between different groups of collocated links could be specified based on their characteristics. Oppositely, for collocated links under the same conditions but with different characteristics, the attributes of the individual CMLs are suspected for the disagreement.

 

References

de Vos, L. W., Overeem, A., Leijnse, H., and Uijlenhoet, R. (2019). Rainfall Estimation Accuracy of a Nationwide Instantaneously Sampling Commercial Microwave Link Network: Error Dependency on Known Characteristics. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 36, 7, 1267-1283. https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-18-0197.1

 

This study was supported by the project SpraiLINK 20-14151J of the Czech Science Foundation.