Statistics of annual and diurnal cloud attenuation over equatorial climate

At frequencies above 10 GHz, cloud attenuation in equatorial climate is one of the components that need to be characterised for low-availability satellite links. In addition to annual and worst month cumulative cloud attenuation, the statistics of seasonal and diurnal variations are required for providing detailed insights into system design. The authors present the cloud occurrences observed during different months, seasons and cloud attenuation results obtained from Penang, Malaysia, for a period of 5 years. A comparison of the present results with the results obtained from the existing models is also presented.