Reduced liquid water content for cloud attenuation prediction: the impact of temperature

The prediction of cloud attenuation relying on the concept of reducing liquid water content to a fixed temperature (w_R) is investigated. Based on an extensive dataset of radiosonde observations collected in Europe, the focus is on the quantification of the prediction error due to the approximation introduced with w_R. The obtained cloud attenuation results indicate that the approximation error δ is markedly sensitive to the reduction temperature T_R and that, specifically, T_R = - 5°C turns out to minimise δ in European sites, whatever the frequency of interest in the 20-100 GHz range.