Comparing One-Minute Rain Rate Distributions from TRMM Satellite Data and Rec. ITU-R P.837-7 in the Tropics

Abstract

Rain attenuation is the dominant impairment on terrestrial and microwave links, with attenuation growing significantly as the frequencies increase above 10 GHz to 100 GHz. The ITU-R rain fade models for terrestrial and Earth-space links require the one-minute rain rate exceeded for 0.01% of an average year, R0.01%, as a fundamental parameter. For locations without reliable long-term rainfall data, Rec ITU-R P.837-7 provides a method for predicting one-minute rain rate distributions. This paper seeks to compare the one-minute rain rate distributions provided by Rec ITU-R P.837-7 over the tropics with one-minute rain rate distributions derived from TRMM satellite data, and DBSG3 the propagation database of ITU-R Study Group 3.