Modeling the Effects of Dust Storm Intensity Variations on Earth–Satellite Link

In this paper, a novel model of dust storm intensity variations and its effects on earth–satellite link design for total attenuation prediction has been developed. The proposed model expresses the total dust-induced attenuation as a function of the empirically derived specific attenuation in (dB/km) and effective slant path distance. The formulation incorporates the vertical variation in dust storm intensity along the propagation path to more accurately represent the attenuation experienced by slant links. The effective slant path distance is obtained as a combination of a total slant path distance and an adjustment factor. The adjustment factor has been developed based on the visibility height model of the dust storm structure. The proposed model has been validated with one-year measured attenuation on 6.2 km and 7.6 km long microwave links operating at 21.2 GHz and 14.5 GHz, respectively.