Forward modeling of an atmospheric scenario: Path characterization in terms of scattering intensity

The knowledge of possible impairments due to atmospheric propagation is of importance in the framework of future 5G mobile networks that use spectrum resource up to the W band. Here, the authors propose the scalar Scattering Indicator (SI), defined as the difference between the simulated TB at 72 GHz and the TB value estimated at the same frequency from a nonlinear combination of TB's values at 23.8 and 31.4 GHz under assumed scatter-free condition. On the basis of radiosonde profiles observed in Milan, Linate (Italy) in 2005, clear-sky scenarios are used as reference to define a scatter-free TBs database. A second database of simulated TBs including scattering effects is generated with ARTS to build the SI. Numerical results show that the SI assumes significant positive values with increasing drop effective radius and total liquid water LWP and that it can be used to identify the scattering due to hydrometeors.