Rain Height Statistics from GPM Data for Satellite Communication Systems in Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract In this present era, the rising demandfor seamless wide band internetwork services such as 5G network requires the propagation of radio waves at high frequency. Rain-induced attenuation poses a lot of dangers on Earth-Space satellite links operating at frequencies above 10 GHz. Although the magnitude of overall attenuation on any radio link is determined by various natural phenomena such as atmospheric gases, fog, mist, aerosol, ice, contribution by rain remains the most significant. This paper provides extensive study on the rain heights variability in Nigeria using data obtained from the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM). The result depicts an increasing trend of rain height from 4.92 km in the southern part of the country to about 5.23 km in the north. The results show that ITU-R recommended value underestimate rain height. The results also show seasonal dependence of rain height throughout the years of study. Analysis of the GPM data shows thatfreezing heightsacross all stations were underestimated byabout 9 % when compared with previous TRMM-based research. The present study has revealed the preference of GPM data over TRMM data for the estimation of rain height and rain-induced attenuation.