Abstract
This work investigates the physical characteristics of raindrop size distribution (DSD) in an equatorial heavy rain region based on three years of disdrometer observations carried out at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s (UTM’s) campus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The natural characteristics of DSD are deduced, and the statistical results are found to be in accordance with the findings obtained from others disdrometer measurements. Moreover, the parameters of the Gamma distribution and the normalized Gamma model are also derived by means of method of moment (MoM) and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). Their performances are subsequently validated using the rain rate estimation accuracy: the normalized Gamma model with the MLE-generated shape parameterµwas found to provide better accuracy in terms of long-term rainfall rate statistics, which reflects the peculiarities of the local climatology in this heavy rain region. These results not only offer a better understanding of the microphysical nature of precipitation in this heavy rain region but also provide essential information that may be useful for the scientific community regarding remote sensing and radio propagation.
Highlights
Raindrop size distribution (DSD) has received much attention over the past few decades due to its shape of distribution, which reflects the fundamental microphysics of rain [1, 2]
The statistical results of the DSD parameters from the Gamma and normalized Gamma models are demonstrated. The relationship between these parameters is subsequently derived from disdrometer observations and the performance of the Gamma and normalized Gamma models in estimating the rain rate for equatorial Malaysia is evaluated
As can be observed in this table, the rain drops tend to increase in number from the lower-drop-size bins to the higher-drop-size bins, which corresponds to the larger diameter of rain drops as the rain rate increases, as evidenced by Figure 4
Summary
Raindrop size distribution (DSD) has received much attention over the past few decades due to its shape of distribution, which reflects the fundamental microphysics of rain [1, 2]. Rainfall measurement via ground-based weather radar or spaceborne satellite observation requires the characteristics of the raindrop spectra for the development of rainfall retrieval algorithms [4, 5], while in satellite communication links, DSD is the dominant parameter that causes attenuation, which leads to significant performance degradation for frequencies above 10 GHz [6, 7] To this end, in order to accurately estimate precipitation rate, much progress has been made in representing the natural variation of DSD. The statistical results of the DSD parameters from the Gamma and normalized Gamma models are demonstrated The relationship between these parameters is subsequently derived from disdrometer observations and the performance of the Gamma and normalized Gamma models in estimating the rain rate for equatorial Malaysia is evaluated.
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