Microwave link rainfall estimation: Effects of link length and frequency, temporal sampling, power resolution, and wet antenna attenuation

Issues associated with microwave link rainfall estimation such as the effects of spatial and temporal variation in rain, the nonlinearity of R–kR–k relations, temporal sampling, power resolution, and wet antenna attenuation are investigated using more than 1.5 years of data from a high-resolution X-band weather radar. Microwave link signals are generated for different link frequencies and lengths from these radar data, so that retrieved path-averaged rainfall intensities can be compared to true path-averaged values. Results of these simulations can be linked to the space–time structure of rain. A frequency-dependent relation between the rainfall intensity at an antenna and the attenuation caused by its wetting is derived using microwave link and rain gauge data. It is shown that if the correct temporal sampling strategy is chosen, the effects of the degradation of power resolution and of wet antenna attenuation (if a correction is applied) are minor (i.e., MBE and bias-corrected RMSE are >−20% and <20% of the mean rainfall intensity, respectively) for link frequencies and lengths above ∼20 GHz and ∼2 km, respectively.