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| Titel |
Assessing the weather monitoring capabilities of cellular microwave link networks |
| VerfasserIn |
Martin Fencl, Miroslav Vrzba, Jörg Rieckermann, Vojtěch Bareš |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250132167
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-12648.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Using of microwave links for rainfall monitoring was suggested already by (Atlas and
Ulbrich, 1977). However, this technique attracted broader attention of scientific community
only in the recent decade, with the extensive growth of cellular microwave link (CML)
networks, which form the backbone of today’s cellular telecommunication infrastructure.
Several studies have already shown that CMLs can be conveniently used as weather sensors
and have potential to provide near-ground path-integrated observations of rainfall but also
humidity or fog. However, although research is still focusing on algorithms to improve the
weather sensing capabilities (Fencl et al., 2015), it is not clear how to convince cellular
operators to provide the power levels of their network. One step in this direction is to show in
which regions or municipalities the networks are sufficiently dense to provide/develop good
services.
In this contribution we suggest a standardized approach to evaluate CML networks in
terms of rainfall observation and to identify suitable regions for CML rainfall monitoring.
We estimate precision of single CML based on its sensitivity to rainfall, i.e. as a
function of frequency, polarization and path length. Capability of a network to
capture rainfall spatial patterns is estimated from the CML coverage and path lengths
considering that single CML provides path-integrated rain rates. We also search for
suitable predictors for regions where no network topologies are available. We test
our approach on several European networks and discuss the results. Our results
show that CMLs are very dense in urban areas (> 1 CML/km2), but less in rural
areas (< 0.02 CML/km2). We found a strong correlation between a population and
CML network density (e.g. R2 = 0.97 in Czech Republic), thus population could
be a simple proxy to identify suitable regions for CML weather monitoring. To
enable a simple and efficient assessment of the CML monitoring potential for any
region worldwide, we are currently integrating our approach into open source online
tool.
In summary, our results demonstrate that CML represent promising environmental
observation network, suitable especially for urban rainfall monitoring. The developed
approach integrated into an open source online tool can be conveniently used e.g. by local
operators or authorities to evaluate the suitability of their region for CML weather
monitoring and estimate the credible spatial-resolution of a CML weather monitoring
product.
Atlas, D. and Ulbrich, C. W. (1977) Path- and Area-Integrated Rainfall Measurement by
Microwave Attenuation in the 1–3 cm Band. Journal of Applied Meteorology, 16(12),
1322–1331.
Fencl, M., Rieckermann, J., Sýkora, P., Stránský, D., and Bareš, V. (2015) Commercial
microwave links instead of rain gauges: fiction or reality? Water Science & Technology,
71(1), 31.
Acknowledgements to Czech Science Foundation project No. 14-22978S and Czech
Technical University in Prague project No. SGS15/050/OHK1/1T/11. |
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