The Promise of GPS in Atmospheric Monitoring

Businger, Steven; Chiswell, Stephen M.; Bevis, Michael; Duan, Jingping; Anthes, Richard A.; Rocken, Christian; Ware, Randolph; Exner, Michael; Vanhove, T.; Solheim, Fredrick

doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<0005:tpogia>2.0.co;2

Cited by 199 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…This estimation agrees with previous studies where uncertainties are obtained by comparison with water vapour radiometers and radiosondes (Kuo et al, 1993;Rocken et al, 1993Rocken et al, , 1995Businger et al, 1996;Duan et al, 1996;Tregoning et al, 1998).…”

Section: Uncertainty Of the Gps-based Iwvsupporting

confidence: 92%

A multi-site intercomparison of integrated water vapour observations for climate change analysis

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Water vapour plays a dominant role in the climate change debate. However, observing water vapour over a climatological time period in a consistent and homogeneous manner is challenging. On one hand, networks of groundbased instruments able to retrieve homogeneous integrated water vapour (IWV) data sets are being set up. Typical examples are Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observation networks such as the International GNSS Service (IGS), with continuous GPS (Global Positioning System) observations spanning over the last 15+ years, and the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET), providing long-term observations performed with standardized and well-calibrated sun photometers. On the other hand, satellite-based measurements of IWV already have a time span of over 10 years (e.g. AIRS) or are being merged to create long-term time series (e.g. GOME, SCIAMACHY, and GOME-2).This study performs an intercomparison of IWV measurements from satellite devices (in the visible, GOME/SCIAMACHY/GOME-2, and in the thermal infrared, AIRS), in situ measurements (radiosondes) and ground-based instruments (GPS, sun photometer), to assess their use in water vapour trends analysis. To this end, we selected 28 sites world-wide for which GPS observations can directly be compared with coincident satellite IWV observations, together with sun photometer and/or radiosonde measurements. The mean biases of the different techniques compared to the GPS estimates vary only between −0.3 to 0.5 mm of IWV. Nevertheless these small biases are accompanied by large standard deviations (SD), especially for the satellite instruments. In particular, we analysed the impact of clouds on the IWV agreement. The influence of specific issues for each instrument on the intercomparison is also investigated (e.g. the distance between the satellite ground pixel centre and the co-located ground-based station, the satellite scan angle, daytime/nighttime differences). Furthermore, we checked if the properties of the IWV scatter plots between these different instruments are dependent on the geography and/or altitude of the station. For all considered instruments, the only dependency clearly detected is with latitude: the SD of the IWV observations with respect to the GPS IWV retrievals decreases with increasing latitude and decreasing mean IWV.

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Section: Uncertainty Of the Gps-based Iwvsupporting

confidence: 92%

A multi-site intercomparison of integrated water vapour observations for climate change analysis

et al. 2014

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“…The atmospheric delay can be converted theoretically and statistically into precipitable water, using surface pressure and temperature at the observation station. The detailed technique to estimate precipitable water from GPS atmospheric delay is discussed by Bevis et al (1992), and Businger et al (1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diurnal Variation of GPS Precipitable Water at Lhasa in Premonsoon and Monsoon Periods

Takagi

Kimura

Kono

2000

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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In this study, precipitable water is estimated from GPS data with high time resolution at Lhasa. Mean precipitable water in the premonsoon and the monsoon periods are about 10mm and 25mm, respectively, while precipitable water increases in short term at around the onset. Prominent diurnal variation of precipitable water can be observed in both periods. The minima of the diurnal variation appear around 1800 LST and 1500 LST in the premonsoon and the monsoon periods, respectively. These characteristics indicate that the diurnal variation of water vapor is strongly affected by the local circulation over the deep valley.

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“…Recently, a technique to estimate PWV from GPS data has been developed (Businger et al 1996). Routine GPS observations are done by the International GPS Service (IGS), for the purpose of the detection of crustal movements.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drastic Evening Increase in Precipitable Water Vapor over the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau

Sasaki¹,

Wu²,

Kimura

et al. 2003

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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A drastic increase in precipitable water vapor (PWV) in the evenings was repeatedly confirmed in October 2000, by an analysis of GPS observational data at Lhasa in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, China. In order to investigate its mechanism, a numerical simulation was performed for a typical day using a regional atmospheric model. During the daytime, moisture is transported toward the summits of the Himalayas from the Hindustan plain along the southern slope of the mountain range by thermallyinduced upslope winds. The moist air mass penetrates the Tibetan Plateau, through some cols of the Himalayas. Moisture accumulates over the northern foot of the Himalayas. Then a horizontal gradient of moisture increases north of the Himalayas, and a stationary moisture front forms between the moist air mass and dry air on the Tibetan Plateau. In the evening, the frontal structure begins to gradually decay until the midnight, and a large amount of moisture bursts toward the inner Tibetan Plateau in the lower atmosphere as a gravity current, causing a rapid increase in PWV. It is speculated, therefore, that the drastic evening increase in PWV, extending widely along the Himalayas, is generated by the plateau scale diurnal wind induced by the thermal effects between the Tibetan Plateau and the Hindustan plain. During the following day, the PWV level decreases over a wide area of the inner Tibetan Plateau, since dry air advection is intensified in the lower atmosphere by the synoptic scale westerly winds, because of the growth of the mixed layer accompanied by the vertical transportation of momentum.

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The Promise of GPS in Atmospheric Monitoring

Cited by 199 publications

References 27 publications

A multi-site intercomparison of integrated water vapour observations for climate change analysis

A multi-site intercomparison of integrated water vapour observations for climate change analysis

Diurnal Variation of GPS Precipitable Water at Lhasa in Premonsoon and Monsoon Periods

Drastic Evening Increase in Precipitable Water Vapor over the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau

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