Estimation of rainfall fields using commercial microwave communication networks of variable density

Zinevich, A.; Alpert, Pinhas; Messer, H.

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2008.03.003

Cited by 111 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The proximity of the measurements to the ground is an additional advantage with respect to other remote sensing techniques, such as weather radar (e.g., Berne et al 2004a). The availability of dense networks of such links used for cellular communication (Messer et al 2006;Leijnse et al 2007b;Zinevich et al 2008Zinevich et al , 2009) over large portions of the earth's land surface could potentially be used to greatly improve global rainfall estimation. The fields of hydrology and meteorology as well as agriculture, traffic management, and climate modeling could benefit from this improvement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These errors and uncertainties are highly useful in many applications using data from microwave links. To optimally use data from networks of commercial microwave links for the creation of rainfall maps (Zinevich et al 2008(Zinevich et al , 2009, it is necessary to have information regarding errors and uncertainties for links with different configurations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Errors and Uncertainties in Microwave Link Rainfall Estimation Explored Using Drop Size Measurements and High-Resolution Radar Data

Leijnse

Uijlenhoet

Berne

2010

Journal of Hydrometeorology

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Microwave links can be used for the estimation of path-averaged rainfall by using either the path-integrated attenuation or the difference in attenuation of two signals with different frequencies and/or polarizations. Link signals have been simulated using measured time series of raindrop size distributions (DSDs) over a period of nearly 2 yr, in combination with wind velocity data and Taylor's hypothesis. For this purpose, Taylor's hypothesis has been tested using more than 1.5 yr of high-resolution radar data. In terms of correlation between spatial and temporal profiles of rainfall intensities, the validity of Taylor's hypothesis quickly decreases with distance. However, in terms of error statistics, the hypothesis is seen to hold up to distances of at least 10 km. Errors and uncertainties (mean bias error and root-mean-square error, respectively) in microwave link rainfall estimates due to spatial DSD variation are at a minimum at frequencies (and frequency combinations) where the power-law relation for the conversion to rainfall intensity is close to linear. Errors generally increase with link length, whereas uncertainties decrease because of the decrease of scatter about the retrieval relations because of averaging of spatially variable DSDs for longer links. The exponent of power-law rainfall retrieval relations can explain a large part of the variation in both bias and uncertainty, which means that the order of magnitude of these error statistics can be predicted from the value of this exponent, regardless of the link length.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Errors and Uncertainties in Microwave Link Rainfall Estimation Explored Using Drop Size Measurements and High-Resolution Radar Data

Leijnse

Uijlenhoet

Berne

2010

Journal of Hydrometeorology

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“…The aim is not to physically describe the atmospheric phenomena, since the conserved properties that are generally advected are heat or humidity (Allen et al (1991)), but to describe the evolution of the rainfall cells during short periods of time (less than 45 min). This approach to the modeling of the transport of rainfall fields has already been applied and discussed in Zinevich et al (2009). Diffusion is not taken into account for two main reasons: first, the network of satellite links is not …”

Section: A Space-time Direct Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These studies make use of both simulated data (Giuli et al 1991(Giuli et al , 1999, with a predefined chosen geometry, and real data (Overeem et al 2013;Zinevich et al 2009) provided by cellular communication networks. The reconstruction of rainfall fields from microwave attenuation data employs various techniques, such as tomography (Giuli et al 1991;Zinevich et al 2008) and ordinary kriging (Overeem et al 2013). Zinevich et al (2009) first uses a data assimilation technique (extended Kalman filter) based on a rainfall advection model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimation of Finescale Rainfall Fields Using Broadcast TV Satellite Links and a 4DVAR Assimilation Method

Mercier

Barthès

Mallet

2015

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

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This study proposes a method based on the use of a set of commercial satellite-to-Earth microwave links to rebuild finescale rainfall fields. Such microwave links exist all over the world and can be used to estimate the integrated rain attenuation over the links' first 5-7 km with a very high temporal resolution (10 s in the present case). The retrieval algorithm makes use of a four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) method involving a numerical advection scheme. The advection velocity is recovered from the observations or from radar rainfall fields at successive time steps.This technique has been successively applied to simulated 2D rain maps and to real data recorded in the autumn of 2013 during the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX), with one sensor receiving microwave signals from four different satellites. The performance of this system is assessed and is compared to an operational Météo-France radar and a network of 10 rain gauges. Because of the limitations of the propagation model, this study is limited to the events with strong advective characteristics (four out of eight recorded events). For these events (only), the method produces rainfall fields that are highly correlated with the radar maps at spatial resolutions greater than 2 3 2 km 2 . The point-scale results are also satisfactory for temporal resolutions greater than 10 min (mean correlation with rain gauge data equal to approximately 0.8, similar to the correlation between radar and rain gauge data).This method can also be adapted to the fusion of a rain gauge with microwave link measurements and, through the use of several sensors, it has the potential of being applied to larger areas.

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The potential of commercial microwave networks to monitor dense fog‐feasibility study

2013

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[1] Here we show the potential for dense fog monitoring using existing measurements from wireless communication systems. Communication networks widely deploy commercial microwave links across the terrain at ground level. Operating at frequencies of tens of gigahertz, they are affected by fog and are, practically, an existing, sensor network, spatially distributed worldwide, which can provide crucial information about fog concentration and visibility. The goal of this paper is to show the feasibility for fog identification and intensity estimation. A method is proposed and is demonstrated by two cases of heavy fog that took place in Israel. During these events, fog covered wide areas (tens of kilometers) and caused severe decrease in visibility, dropping as low as several tens of meters. Liquid water content and visibility values were estimated using measurements from tens of microwave links deployed in the observed area for each event. Each of the links provided a single measurement which was taken simultaneously across all of the links in the system. The values were found to be in the range of 0.5-0.8 gr/m 3 , high concentration values that match the maximum value range observed in field measurements carried out for prior studies in different test areas in the world. The visibility ranges calculated, between 30 and 70 m, fit the visibility assessments from the specialized measuring equipment operating in the observed area at the same time. These results point to the strong potential of the proposed technique.Citation: David, N., P. Alpert, and H. Messer (2013), The potential of commercial microwave networks to monitor dense fog-feasibility study,

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Estimation of rainfall fields using commercial microwave communication networks of variable density

Cited by 111 publications

References 24 publications

Errors and Uncertainties in Microwave Link Rainfall Estimation Explored Using Drop Size Measurements and High-Resolution Radar Data

Errors and Uncertainties in Microwave Link Rainfall Estimation Explored Using Drop Size Measurements and High-Resolution Radar Data

Estimation of Finescale Rainfall Fields Using Broadcast TV Satellite Links and a 4DVAR Assimilation Method

The potential of commercial microwave networks to monitor dense fog‐feasibility study

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