Model comparison for estimating cloud liquid water content and attenuation in tropical region

In this paper, comparison and analysis of two cloud models are performed for prediction of cloud liquid water content and cloud attenuation in tropical region. To this aim, one-year (2012) radiosonde data, collected in the tropical country of Singapore, are processed to derive the 0°C/-20°C isothermal heights, calculate cloud liquid water content and then estimate cloud attenuation. Comparing with ITU-R P.840-6 model, our results indicate that the well-known Salonen Uppala (SU) model intends to underestimate the cloud liquid water content and corresponding cloud attenuation in tropical region. In addition, a newly proposed Water Vapor Pressure (WVP) cloud detection model provides relatively large cloud attenuation and shows its feasibility to predict cloud attenuation for tropical region.