Atmospheric Integrated Water Vapor Estimation Through Microwave Propagation Measurements Along Ground-To-Air Radio Links

The estimation of water vapor (WV) content in the lowest part of the troposphere is a critical issue which, up to now, cannot be obtained from space measurements with sufficient accuracy. A new technique, which is based on Ku-K band microwave measurements of the differential attenuation of two signals transmitted at closely spaced frequencies, has been recently proposed. In order to prove the effectiveness of this technique a low-cost microwave instrumentation was designed and the first measurements were performed by means of a ground-to-ground link. Instrument design and characteristics, as well the results of the first measurement campaign are presented here.