A Simplified Model to Predict Oxygen Attenuation on Earth-Space Links

A simplified yet accurate model to predict oxygen attenuation for Earth-space applications (10-350 GHz range) is presented in this contribution. The model is developed by taking advantage of an extensive set of high-resolution radiosonde observations (RAOBS) collected in several sites worldwide. It predicts the statistics of oxygen attenuation along the path by retaining the accurate formulation for the specific oxygen attenuation included in the Liebe MPM93 model, but it relies on simplified meteorological input values (namely the mean yearly ground temperature and the statistics of the ground water vapor content), rather than on full atmospheric vertical profile. Tested against attenuation estimates obtained from Liebe MPM93 model coupled with the mentioned RAOBS data, the model provides a very good prediction accuracy in the full 10-350 GHz range, which turns out to be almost independent of the considered site.