Electromagnetic wave attenuation due to the charged particles in dust&sand (DUSA) storms

•The attenuation of EWMs by DUSA particles is calculated.•The RH and the particle's charges simutaneously are considered into the calculation.•Effect of the RH and charges on the attenuation is discussed.•The effect of particle size on the attenuation is also discussed.

In this paper, we calculated the attenuation of the electromagnetic waves (EMWs) propagating through the dust&sand (DUSA) storms using the predicting model based on Mie theory, in which the charges carried on the DUSA particles, the ambient relative humidity (RH) and the particle size distribution are considered simultaneously. It can be found that the charges carried on the DUSA particles and the RH can change the value of the absorption and scattering efficiency, but they can't change the domain attenuation mechanism caused by the DUSA storms in the EMWs frequency regions (3 GHz, 4 GHz), (8 GHz, 40 GHz) and (75 GHz, 100 GHz). Whatever the DUSA storms are formed by equal-size particles or the mixed-size particles, the charge carried on the particle surface and the RH have a significant impact on the attenuation caused by the DUSA storms, and the change ratio of the attenuation caused by the charge or RH depends on the particle size. By the comparison of the calculated attenuation with the measured one, we found that the charges carried on the particles and the RH will be important factors to affect the attenuation of the EMWs.