scholarly journals Estimating trends in atmospheric water vapor and temperature time series over Germany

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3117-3132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fadwa Alshawaf ◽  
Kyriakos Balidakis ◽  
Galina Dick ◽  
Stefan Heise ◽  
Jens Wickert

Abstract. Ground-based GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) has efficiently been used since the 1990s as a meteorological observing system. Recently scientists have used GNSS time series of precipitable water vapor (PWV) for climate research. In this work, we compare the temporal trends estimated from GNSS time series with those estimated from European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA-Interim) data and meteorological measurements. We aim to evaluate climate evolution in Germany by monitoring different atmospheric variables such as temperature and PWV. PWV time series were obtained by three methods: (1) estimated from ground-based GNSS observations using the method of precise point positioning, (2) inferred from ERA-Interim reanalysis data, and (3) determined based on daily in situ measurements of temperature and relative humidity. The other relevant atmospheric parameters are available from surface measurements of meteorological stations or derived from ERA-Interim. The trends are estimated using two methods: the first applies least squares to deseasonalized time series and the second uses the Theil–Sen estimator. The trends estimated at 113 GNSS sites, with 10 to 19 years temporal coverage, vary between −1.5 and 2.3 mm decade−1 with standard deviations below 0.25 mm decade−1. These results were validated by estimating the trends from ERA-Interim data over the same time windows, which show similar values. These values of the trend depend on the length and the variations of the time series. Therefore, to give a mean value of the PWV trend over Germany, we estimated the trends using ERA-Interim spanning from 1991 to 2016 (26 years) at 227 synoptic stations over Germany. The ERA-Interim data show positive PWV trends of 0.33 ± 0.06 mm decade−1 with standard errors below 0.03 mm decade−1. The increment in PWV varies between 4.5 and 6.5 % per degree Celsius rise in temperature, which is comparable to the theoretical rate of the Clausius–Clapeyron equation.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fadwa Alshawaf ◽  
Kyriakos Balidakis ◽  
Galina Dick ◽  
Stefan Heise ◽  
Jens Wickert

Abstract. Ground-based GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) have efficiently been used since the 1990s as a meteorological observing system. Recently scientists used GNSS time series of precipitable water vapor (PWV) for climate research. In this work, we compare the temporal trends estimated from GNSS time series with those estimated from European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis (ERA-Interim) data and meteorological measurements. We aim at evaluating climate evolution in Germany by monitoring different atmospheric variables such as temperature and PWV. PWV time series were obtained by three methods: 1) estimated from ground-based GNSS observations using the method of precise point positioning, 2) inferred from ERA-Interim reanalysis data, and 3) determined based on daily in situ measurements of temperature and relative humidity. The other relevant atmospheric parameters are available from surface measurements of meteorological stations or derived from ERA-Interim. The trends are estimated using two methods, the first applies least squares to seasonally-adjusted time series and the second using the Theil-Sen estimator. The trends estimated at 113 GNSS sites, with 10 and 19 year temporal coverage, varies between −1.5 and 2 mm/decade with standard deviations below 0.25 mm/decade. These values depend on the length and the variations of the time series. Therefore, we estimated the PWV trends using ERA-Interim and surface measurements spanning from 1991 to 2016 (26 years) at synoptic 227 stations over Germany. The former shows positive PWV trends below 0.5 mm/decade while the latter shows positive trends below 0.9 mm/decade with standard deviations below 0.03 mm/decade. The estimated PWV trends correlate with the temperature trends.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 350
Author(s):  
Rosa Delia García ◽  
Emilio Cuevas ◽  
Victoria Eugenia Cachorro ◽  
Omaira E. García ◽  
África Barreto ◽  
...  

Precipitable water vapor retrievals are of major importance for assessing and understanding atmospheric radiative balance and solar radiation resources. On that basis, this study presents the first PWV values measured with a novel EKO MS-711 grating spectroradiometer from direct normal irradiance in the spectral range between 930 and 960 nm at the Izaña Observatory (IZO, Spain) between April and December 2019. The expanded uncertainty of PWV (UPWV) was theoretically evaluated using the Monte-Carlo method, obtaining an averaged value of 0.37 ± 0.11 mm. The estimated uncertainty presents a clear dependence on PWV. For PWV ≤ 5 mm (62% of the data), the mean UPWV is 0.31 ± 0.07 mm, while for PWV > 5 mm (38% of the data) is 0.47 ± 0.08 mm. In addition, the EKO PWV retrievals were comprehensively compared against the PWV measurements from several reference techniques available at IZO, including meteorological radiosondes, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), CIMEL-AERONET sun photometer and Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometry (FTIR). The EKO PWV values closely align with the above mentioned different techniques, providing a mean bias and standard deviation of −0.30 ± 0.89 mm, 0.02 ± 0.68 mm, −0.57 ± 0.68 mm, and 0.33 ± 0.59 mm, with respect to the RS92, GNSS, FTIR and CIMEL-AERONET, respectively. According to the theoretical analysis, MB decreases when comparing values for PWV > 5 mm, leading to a PWV MB between −0.45 mm (EKO vs. FTIR), and 0.11 mm (EKO vs. CIMEL-AERONET). These results confirm that the EKO MS-711 spectroradiometer is precise enough to provide reliable PWV data on a routine basis and, as a result, can complement existing ground-based PWV observations. The implementation of PWV measurements in a spectroradiometer increases the capabilities of these types of instruments to simultaneously obtain key parameters used in certain applications such as monitoring solar power plants performance.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (24) ◽  
pp. 5566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingzhi Zhao ◽  
Xiongwei Ma ◽  
Wanqiang Yao ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Zheng Du ◽  
...  

Standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) is an acknowledged drought monitoring index, and the evapotranspiration (ET) used to calculated SPEI is obtained based on the Thornthwaite (TH) model. However, the SPEI calculated based on the TH model is overestimated globally, whereas the more accurate ET derived from the Penman–Monteith (PM) model recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is unavailable due to the lack of a large amount of meteorological data at most places. Therefore, how to improve the accuracy of ET calculated by the TH model becomes the focus of this study. Here, a revised TH (RTH) model is proposed using the temperature (T) and precipitable water vapor (PWV) data. The T and PWV data are derived from the reanalysis data and the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) observation, respectively. The initial value of ET for the RTH model is calculated based on the TH model, and the time series of ET residual between the TH and PM models is then obtained. Analyzed results reveal that ET residual is highly correlated with PWV and T, and the correlate coefficient between PWV and ET is −0.66, while that between T and ET for cases of T larger or less than 0 °C are −0.54 and 0.59, respectively. Therefore, a linear model between ET residual and PWV/T is established, and the ET value of the RTH model can be obtained by combining the TH-derived ET and estimated ET residual. Finally, the SPEI calculated based on the RTH model can be obtained and compared with that derived using PM and TH models. Result in the Loess Plateau (LP) region reveals the good performance of the RTH-based SPEI when compared with the TH-based SPEI over the period of 1979–2016. A case analysis in April 2013 over the LP region also indicates the superiority of the RTH-based SPEI at 88 meteorological and 31 GNSS stations when the PM-based SPEI is considered as the reference.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 2526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Yang ◽  
Jiming Guo ◽  
Junbo Shi ◽  
Lv Zhou ◽  
Yi Xu ◽  
...  

Water vapor is an important driving factor in the related weather processes in the troposphere, and its temporal-spatial distribution and change are crucial to the formation of cloud and rainfall. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) water vapor tomography, which can reconstruct the water vapor distribution using GNSS observation data, plays an increasingly important role in GNSS meteorology. In this paper, a method to improve the distribution of observations in GNSS water vapor tomography is proposed to overcome the problem of the relatively concentrated distribution of observations, enable satellite signal rays to penetrate more tomographic voxels, and improve the issue of overabundance of zero elements in a tomographic matrix. Numerical results indicate that the accuracy of the water vapor tomography is improved by the proposed method when the slant water vapor calculated by GAMIT is used as a reference. Comparative results of precipitable water vapor (PWV) and water vapor density (WVD) profiles from radiosonde station data indicate that the proposed method is superior to the conventional method in terms of the mean absolute error (MAE), standard deviations (STD), and root-mean-square error (RMS). Further discussion shows that the ill-condition of tomographic equation and the richness of data in the tomographic model need to be discussed separately.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 4857-4877
Author(s):  
Ramashray Yadav ◽  
Ram Kumar Giri ◽  
Virendra Singh

Abstract. The spatiotemporal variations of integrated precipitable water vapor (IPWV) are very important in understanding the regional variability of water vapor. Traditional in situ measurements of IPWV in the Indian region are limited, and therefore the performance of satellite and Copernicus Atmosphere Meteorological Service (CAMS) retrievals with the Indian Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) as reference were analyzed. In this study the CAMS reanalysis data of 1 year (2018) and the Indian GNSS and INSAT-3DR sounder retrieval data for 1.5 years (January 2017 to June 2018) were utilized, and statistics were computed. It is noticed that seasonal correlation coefficient (CC) values between INSAT-3DR and Indian GNSS data mainly lie within the range of 0.50 to 0.98 for all the selected 19 stations except Thiruvananthapuram (0.1), Kanyakumari (0.31) and Karaikal (0.15) during the monsoon season and Panjim (0.2) during the post-monsoon season. The seasonal CC values between CAMS and GNSS IPWV range from 0.73 to .99 except for Jaipur (0.16) and Bhubaneswar (0.29) during the pre-monsoon season, Panjim (0.38) during the monsoon season, Nagpur (0.50) during the post-monsoon season, and Dibrugarh (0.49) Jaipur (0.58) and Bhubaneswar (0.16) during the winter season. The root mean square error (RMSE) values are higher under the wet conditions (pre-monsoon and monsoon season) than under dry conditions (post-monsoon and winter season), and we found differences in magnitude and sign of bias for INSAT-3DR and CAMS with respect to GNSS IPWV from station to station and season to season. This study will help to improve understanding and utilization of CAMS and INSAT-3DR data more effectively along with GNSS data over land, coastal and desert locations in terms of the seasonal flow of IPWV, which is an essential integrated variable in forecasting applications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 199 ◽  
pp. 00002
Author(s):  
Agana Louisse S. Domingo ◽  
Ernest P. Macalalad

Precipitable water vapor (PWV) is a parameter that used to describe the water vapor content in the atmosphere has the potential to become a precipitation. Thus, it is important to measure PWV and investigate its trends and variability for potential forecasting precipitation. This study presents the variation of PWV at Tanay Upper Station (14°34’52.8”N, 121°22’08.9”E) from radiosonde operated by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration and at PIMO station (14°38’08.5”N, 121°04’39.4”E) using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) operated by NASAJet Propulsion Laboratory under the International GNSS Service (IGS) network from 2015-2017. Moreover, there is no significant difference (p-values < 0.05) among PWV radiosonde, GNSS-PWV and rainfall as a function of year of observation. Monthly mean variation conforms to the Coronas climate classification, Climate Type I, in terms of the amount of precipitation. It is shown that PWV is high during wet months and least during dry months (November to April). Further, monthly mean variation is moderate correlated with surface temperature from radiosonde (R = +0.589). Evaporation rate depends on the surface temperature, which contributes in forming water vapor. The results showed that PWV from radiosonde gave reasonable values to be considered during wet and dry season as well as the seasonal variation of rainfall.


2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Haishen Wang ◽  
Yubao Liu ◽  
Yuewei Liu ◽  
Yunchang Cao ◽  
Hong Liang ◽  
...  

Precipitable water vapor (PWV) retrieved from ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) stations acquisition signal of a navigation satellite system provides high spatial and temporal resolution atmospheric water vapor. In this paper, an observation-nudging-based real-time four-dimensional data assimilation (RTFDDA) approach was used to assimilate the PWV estimated from GNSS observation into the WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) modeling system. A landfall typhoon, “Mangkhut”, is chosen to evaluate the impact of GNSS PWV data assimilation on its track, intensity, and precipitation prediction. The results show that RTFDDA can assimilate GNSS PWV data into WRF to improve the water vapor distribution associated with the typhoon. Assimilating the GNSS PWV improved the typhoon track and intensity prediction when and after the typhoon made landfall, correcting a 5–10 hPa overestimation (too deep) of the central pressure of the typhoon at landfall. It also improved the occurrence and the intensity of the major typhoon spiral rainbands.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4963-4972
Author(s):  
Zhilu Wu ◽  
Yanxiong Liu ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Jungang Wang ◽  
Xiufeng He ◽  
...  

Abstract. The calibration microwave radiometer (CMR) on board the Haiyang-2A (HY-2A) satellite provides wet tropospheric delay correction for altimetry data, which can also contribute to the understanding of climate system and weather processes. The ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) provides precise precipitable water vapor (PWV) with high temporal resolution and could be used for calibration and monitoring of the CMR data, and shipborne GNSS provides accurate PWV over open oceans, which can be directly compared with uncontaminated CMR data. In this study, the HY-2A CMR water vapor product is validated using ground-based GNSS observations of 100 International GNSS Service (IGS) stations along the global coastline and 56 d shipborne GNSS observations over the Indian Ocean. The processing strategy for GNSS data and CMR data is discussed in detail. Special efforts were made in the quality control and reconstruction of contaminated CMR data. The validation result shows that HY-2A CMR PWV agrees well with ground-based GNSS PWV with 2.67 mm as the root mean square (rms) within 100 km. Geographically, the rms is 1.12 mm in the polar region and 2.78 mm elsewhere. The PWV agreement between HY-2A and shipborne GNSS shows a significant correlation with the distance between the ship and the satellite footprint, with an rms of 1.57 mm for the distance threshold of 100 km. Ground-based GNSS and shipborne GNSS agree with HY-2A CMR well.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li ◽  
Huang ◽  
Chen ◽  
Dam ◽  
Fok ◽  
...  

Mass redistribution within the Earth system deforms the surface elastically. Loading theory allows us to predict loading induced displacement anywhere on the Earth’s surface using environmental loading models, e.g., Global Land Data Assimilation System. In addition, different publicly available loading products are available. However, there are differences among those products and the differences among the combinations of loading models cannot be ignored when precisions of better than 1 cm are required. Many scholars have applied these loading corrections to Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) time series from mainland China without considering or discussing the differences between the available models. Evaluating the effects of different loading products over this region is of paramount importance for accurately removing the loading signal. In this study, we investigate the performance of these different publicly available loading products on the scatter of GNSS time series from the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China. We concentrate on five different continental water storage loading models, six different non-tidal atmospheric loading models, and five different non-tidal oceanic loading models. We also investigate all the different combinations of loading products. The results show that the difference in RMS reduction can reach 20% in the vertical component depending on the loading correction applied. We then discuss the performance of different loading combinations and their effects on the noise characteristics of GNSS height time series and horizontal velocities. The results show that the loading products from NASA may be the best choice for corrections in mainland China. This conclusion could serve as an important reference for loading products users in this region.


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