Validating weather-forecast-driven propagation models at millimeter waves using multisource ground-based radiometric data

In this work, several sources are used to characterize, in both deterministic and statistical ways, the atmospheric propagation channel in terms of brightness temperature and path attenuation at high frequency bands (such as K- Ka-, V- and W-band). We have used two different models: a weather-forecast-driven 3-dimensional radiative transfer model (RTM) and a stochastic 1-dimensional model (SNEM) with synthetic clouds dataset provided as inputs. We have compared the outputs of such radiative transfer simulations with actual measurements of two co-located microwave radiometers: a humidity and temperature profiler and a Sun-tracking radiometer. The comparisons show satisfactory results and a good agreement among all sources, with some small inaccuracies to be investigated in future works. RTM successfully reproduced correlations between brightness temperature and path attenuation at several frequency bands, confirming the advantage of using weather forecast models combined with physically-based radiative transfer models. Also, the SNEM model showed to be able to reproduce the atmospheric channel but a proper fine tuning is needed to better represent the climatological conditions of the area of interest.