SuomiNet: A Real–Time National GPS Network for Atmospheric Research and Education

Abstract

"SuomiNet," a university-based, real-time, national Global Positioning System (GPS) network, is being developed for atmospheric research and education with funding from the National Science Foundation and with cost share from collaborating universities. The network, named to honor meteorological satellite pioneer Verner Suomi, will exploit the recently shown ability of ground-based GPS receivers to make thousands of accurate upper-and lower-atmospheric measurements per day. Phase delays induced in GPS signals by the ionosphere and neutral atmosphere can be measured with high precision simultaneously along a dozen or so GPS ray paths in the field of view. These delays can be converted into integrated water vapor (if surface pressure data or estimates are available) and total electron content (TEC), along each GPS ray path. The resulting continuous, accurate, all-weather, real-time GPS moisture data will help advance university research in mesoscale modeling and data assimilation, severe weather, precipitation, cloud dynamics, regional climate, and hydrology. Similarly, continuous, accurate, all-weather, real-time TEC data have applications in modeling and prediction of severe terrestrial and space weather, detection and forecasting of low-altitude ionospheric scintillation activity and geomagnetic storm effects at ionospheric midlatitudes, and detection of ionospheric effects induced by a variety of geophysical events. SuomiNet data also have potential applications in coastal meteorology, providing ground truth for satellite radiometry, and detection of scintillation associated with atmospheric turbulence in the lower troposphere. The goal of SuomiNet is to make large amounts of spatially and temporally dense GPS-sensed atmospheric data widely available in real time, for academic research and education. Information on participation in SuomiNet is available via www.unidata.ucar.edu/suominet.

Further studies of the heat island associated with a small midwestern city

“…The second source of temperature information came from the sensor affixed to a SuomiNet Global Positioning System (GPS) station. The SuomiNet is a network of GPS antennae which use the wet delay in the transmission of GPS signals to derive measurements of total precipitable water (Businger et al, 1996); each station also has a unit to measure ambient atmospheric temperature, humidity, and pressure (Ware et al, 2000). In each case, the temperatures are measured on the hour, and not an average.…”

Diurnal variation in water vapor over North America and its implications for sampling errors in radiosonde humidity

“…Unlike microwave radiometers, however, GPS receivers work under all weather conditions. Other advantages of GPS-sensed PW include high sampling resolution (every few minutes or better), self-calibration, low cost, and large coverage [Ware et al, 2000].…”

Using AIRS to assess the precipitable water vapor in global climate models (GCMs) with regional validation from SuomiNet

“…To increase the statistics of the evaluation we assess use of the AIRS PWV (v5) product on a regional scale in the U.S. southern Great Plains. Validation data is obtained by estimating regional monthly mean values from the SuomiNet GPS network [4]. Details of this regional GPS estimation are presented in Roman et al [1].…”