scholarly journals Comparison of GNSS integrated water vapor and NWM reanalysis data over Central and South America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Isabel Fernández ◽  
Amalia Margarita Meza ◽  
María Paula Natali ◽  
Clara Eugenia Bianchi

Abstract. We compared and analyzed data of vertically Integrated Water Vapor (IWV) from two different re-analysis models (ERA-Interim from ECMWF and MERRA-2 from NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office) with respect to IWV values from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) at 53 stations of Central and South America during the 7-year period from January 2007 till December 2013. The comparison was performed taking into account the geopotential height differences between each GNSS station and the correspondent values assigned by the models. Thus, the set of GNSS stations was divided into 3 groups: Small, Large and Critical height difference stations. Moreover, the performance of the re-analysis models was also analyzed by using an additional classification of three levels according to the mean IWV (IWV) value expected at the station: IWV > 30 kg m−2, 12 kg m−2 ⩽ IWV ⩽ 30 kg m−2 and IWV 

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhilu Wu ◽  
Yanxiong Liu ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Jungang Wang ◽  
Xiufeng He ◽  
...  

Abstract. The calibration microwave radiometer (CMR) onboard Haiyang-2A satellite provides wet tropospheric delays correction for altimetry data, which can also contribute to the understanding of climate system and weather processes. Ground-based Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide precise 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 IGS stations along the coastline and 56-day shipborne GNSS observations over the Indian Ocean. The processing strategy for GNSS data and CMR data is discussed in detail. Special efforts were made to 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 in 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 with no obvious system error.


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 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabila Putri ◽  
Johannes Boehm ◽  
Dudy D. Wijaya ◽  
Wedyanto Kuntjoro ◽  
Zamzam Tanuwijaya ◽  
...  

<p>The mean temperature weighted with water vapor pressure (Tm) is an important parameter to obtain precipitable water vapor (PWV) from the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) observations. This study investigates the possible impacts of equatorial troposphere on Tm estimates and its relation with surface temperature Ts. We calculated Tm in Indonesia from a Numerical Weather Model at nine InaCORS sites. We used 3-hourly ERA5 pressure, temperature, and humidity profiles for the year 2019. We found that Tm and surface temperature Ts in Indonesia have low correlation, less than 0.4. Seasonal and site-specific Tm-Ts relationships have slightly higher correlation, although the values can vary significantly. The highest correlation of around 0.7 is found at site CPUT in Kalimantan. We calculated Tm at nine additional stations in Kalimantan and found that stations located farther from the coast tend to have higher correlation, independent of the seasons. This suggests that Tm is also influenced by the vicinity to the coast. Based on our findings, the use of a general Tm-Ts relationship in Indonesia may not be appropriate. Further studies are necessary to develop an improved Tm over Indonesian region.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 3511-3522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Ding ◽  
Shubi Zhang ◽  
Suqin Wu ◽  
Xiaoming Wang ◽  
Allison Kealy ◽  
...  

Abstract. The determination of the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere plays an important role in the atmospheric monitoring. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) tomography can be used to construct 3-D distribution of water vapor over the field covered by a GNSS network with high temporal and spatial resolutions. In current tomographic approaches, a pre-set fixed rectangular field that roughly covers the area of the distribution of the GNSS signals on the top plane of the tomographic field is commonly used for all tomographic epochs. Due to too many unknown parameters needing to be estimated, the accuracy of the tomographic solution degrades. Another issue of these approaches is their unsuitability for GNSS networks with a low number of stations, as the shape of the field covered by the GNSS signals is, in fact, roughly that of an upside-down cone rather than the rectangular cube as the pre-set. In this study, a new approach for determination of tomographic fields fitting the real distribution of GNSS signals on different tomographic planes at different tomographic epochs and also for discretization of the tomographic fields based on the perimeter of the tomographic boundary on the plane and meshing techniques is proposed. The new approach was tested using three stations from the Hong Kong GNSS network and validated by comparing the tomographic results against radiosonde data from King's Park Meteorological Station (HKKP) during the one month period of May 2015. Results indicated that the new approach is feasible for a three-station GNSS network tomography. This is significant due to the fact that the conventional approaches cannot even solve a network tomography from a few stations.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Ding ◽  
Shubi Zhang ◽  
Suqin Wu ◽  
Xiaoming Wang ◽  
Allison Kealy ◽  
...  

Abstract. The determination of the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere plays an important role in the atmospheric monitoring. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) tomography can be used to construct 3D distribution of water vapor over the field covered by a GNSS network with high temporal and spatial resolutions. In current tomographic approaches, a pre-set fixed rectangular field that roughly covers the area of the distribution of the GNSS signals on the top plane of the tomographic field is commonly used for all tomographic epochs. Due to too many unknown parameters needing to be estimated, the accuracy of the tomographic solution degrades. Another issue of these approaches is their unsuitability for GNSS networks with a few stations as the shape of the field covered by the GNSS signals is in fact roughly an upside-down cone rather than the rectangular cube as the pre-set. In this study, a new approach for determination of tomographic fields fitting the real distribution of GNSS signals on different tomographic planes at different tomographic epochs and also for discretization of the tomographic fields based on the perimeter of the tomographic boundary on the plane and meshing techniques is proposed. The new approach was tested using three stations from the Hong Kong GNSS network and validated by comparing the tomographic results against radiosonde data from King's Park Meteorological Station (HKKP) during the one month period of May, 2015. Results indicated that the new approach is feasible for a three-station GNSS network tomography. This is significant due to the fact that the conventional approaches cannot even solve a few stations network tomography.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 2183-2208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Kačmařík ◽  
Jan Douša ◽  
Galina Dick ◽  
Florian Zus ◽  
Hugues Brenot ◽  
...  

Abstract. An extensive validation of line-of-sight tropospheric slant total delays (STD) from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), ray tracing in numerical weather prediction model (NWM) fields and microwave water vapour radiometer (WVR) is presented. Ten GNSS reference stations, including collocated sites, and almost 2 months of data from 2013, including severe weather events were used for comparison. Seven institutions delivered their STDs based on GNSS observations processed using 5 software programs and 11 strategies enabling to compare rather different solutions and to assess the impact of several aspects of the processing strategy. STDs from NWM ray tracing came from three institutions using three different NWMs and ray-tracing software. Inter-techniques evaluations demonstrated a good mutual agreement of various GNSS STD solutions compared to NWM and WVR STDs. The mean bias among GNSS solutions not considering post-fit residuals in STDs was −0.6 mm for STDs scaled in the zenith direction and the mean standard deviation was 3.7 mm. Standard deviations of comparisons between GNSS and NWM ray-tracing solutions were typically 10 mm ± 2 mm (scaled in the zenith direction), depending on the NWM model and the GNSS station. Comparing GNSS versus WVR STDs reached standard deviations of 12 mm ± 2 mm also scaled in the zenith direction. Impacts of raw GNSS post-fit residuals and cleaned residuals on optimal reconstructing of GNSS STDs were evaluated at inter-technique comparison and for GNSS at collocated sites. The use of raw post-fit residuals is not generally recommended as they might contain strong systematic effects, as demonstrated in the case of station LDB0. Simplified STDs reconstructed only from estimated GNSS tropospheric parameters, i.e. without applying post-fit residuals, performed the best in all the comparisons; however, it obviously missed part of tropospheric signals due to non-linear temporal and spatial variations in the troposphere. Although the post-fit residuals cleaned of visible systematic errors generally showed a slightly worse performance, they contained significant tropospheric signal on top of the simplified model. They are thus recommended for the reconstruction of STDs, particularly during high variability in the troposphere. Cleaned residuals also showed a stable performance during ordinary days while containing promising information about the troposphere at low-elevation angles.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 3056
Author(s):  
Si Xiong ◽  
Fujian Ma ◽  
Xiaodong Ren ◽  
Jun Chen ◽  
Xiaohong Zhang

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) water vapor tomography is an important technique to obtain the three-dimensional distribution of atmospheric water vapor. The rapid development of low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations has led to a richer set of observations, which brings new expectations for water vapor tomography. This paper analyzes the influence of LEO constellation-augmented multi-GNSS(LCAMG)on the tomography, in terms of ray distribution, tomography accuracy, and horizontal resolution, by simulating LEO constellation data. The results show that after adding 288 LEO satellites to GNSS, the 30-min ray distribution effect of GNSS can be achieved in 10 min, which can effectively shorten the observation time by 66.7%. In the 10-min observation time, the non-repetitive effective observation value of LCAMG is 2.38 times that of GNSS, and the accuracy is 1.27% higher than that of GNSS. Compared with GNSS and the global positioning system (GPS), at a horizontal resolution of 13 × 14, the proportion of empty voxels in LCAMG reduces by 5.22% and 22.53%, respectively.


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