Comparative analysis of precipitable liquid water content from micro rain radar and era-interim data: implication on radio wave propagation in a tropical location

Abstract

The characteristics of the vertical profile of precipitable liquid water content (PLWC) obtained from Micro Rain Radar (MRR) and ERA-Interim data at a tropical site (Akure, Nigeria) is reported in this work. One (1) year (2014) data of PLWC was obtained from a vertically-looking MRR sited at the Department of Physics, FUTA (7°15’N, 5°15’E) and data set of PLWC obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) re-analysis ERA-Interim with a resolution of 0.25 × 0.25. Comparative studies based on the vertical profile of the PLWC diurnally, seasonally, and monthly were carried out to deduce the significant trend. The profile assessment over the two sources of data shows low PLWC which is less than 0.1 gm−3 with a maximum value of about 1.5 gm−3. The specific attenuation due to cloud obtained using the two data sets at a frequency range of 15 - 75 GHz (Ku – V band) shows that attenuation values are more pronounced using data obtained from the ground-based radar. The ERA-Interim data tends to underestimate the cloud-based attenuation in this region.