Scintillation prediction using improved pre-processed radiosounding data

This paper is presenting a model for the prediction of cumulative statistics of amplitude scintillation at microwave frequencies, on an earth-space communication link. This model is using one year of pre-processed radiosonde data for which correction algorithms are applied in order to improve the vertical humidity profiles. The statistics of the vertical profile of the structure constant C² _n of the troposphere is then calculated and used for the evaluation of the mean value of the variance of the scintillation amplitude ( sigma² _chi ). Assuming a Gaussian distribution, the cumulative distribution of sigma² _chi is then calculated. The statistics have been evaluated for 1990, using radiosonde launches from Uccle, Belgium, and compared to statistics of scintillation variance measured the same year at Louvain-la-Neuve, using the Olympus beacons.