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The Global Positioning System for the Geosciences Summary and Proceedings of a Workshop on Improving the GPS Reference Station Infrastructure for Earth, Oceanic, and Atmospheric Science Applications (1997) / Chapter Skim
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3 Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere
Pages 14-17

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Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 14...
... According to the authors, GPS has great potential for contributing to the global measurement of precipitable water vapor in remote areas where there are no radiosondes, in moist equatorial oceanic regions where algorithms based on passive microwave observations do not presently match data derived from ship-launched radiosondes, and in very dry polar regions where passive microwave techniques cannot be used because of ice cover. The measurement of precipitable water vapor is also important for regional and local hazardous weather detection and forecasting.
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From page 15...
... The working group began by discussing opportunities for atmospheric scientists to apply GPS-derived data to their work, which ranges from short-range weather forecasting to research associated with water vapor distributions on global scales and time scales ranging from seasonal to decadal. A ground-based receiver with a collocated meteorological station, which adds perhaps $30,000 to $50,000 to the cost of the installation, can potentially provide continuous measurements of precipitable water vapor with accuracies on Me order of 1 to 2 millimeters out of typically measured total values of 20 to 50 millimeters of equivalent water content Continuous observations have the potential to improve short term, small scale weather forecasts and to monitor climate variables globally over land.
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From page 16...
... · Infrastructure investments for reference sites, such as increased electrical power, improved cooling and air conditioning for equipment and instn~mentation, and additional storage space, would be beneficial to all users. Dual-frequency receivers are preferable to Ll-only receivers and should be used at reference stations whenever possible.
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From page 17...
... < 500 km low latitude sites (space) The quantitative and qualitative requirements listed in this table were determined by the remote sensing working group.
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Key Terms

  • precipitable water
  • electron content
  • total electron
  • numerical weather
  • electron density

  • reference sites
  • weather forecasting
  • reference stations
  • atmospheric pressure
  • weather prediction

  • ionospheric delay
  • atmospheric refractivity
  • gps signal
  • gps reference
  • reference station

  • space weather
  • gps observations
  • delays caused
  • geophysical researchers
  • refractivity data

  • single frequency
  • signal delays
  • ionospheric propagation
  • delay caused
  • global measurements

  • gps receivers
  • prediction models
  • using gps
  • passive microwave
  • weather detection


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