The uncertainty of the atmospheric integrated water vapour estimated from GNSS observations
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2016

Within the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) there is a need for an assessment of the uncertainty in the integrated water vapour (IWV) in the atmosphere estimated from ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) observations. All relevant error sources in GNSS-derived IWV are therefore essential to be investigated. We present two approaches, a statistical and a theoretical analysis, for the assessment of the uncertainty of the IWV. The method is valuable for all applications of GNSS IWV data in atmospheric research and weather forecast. It will be implemented to the GNSS IWV data stream for GRUAN in order to assign a specific uncertainty to each data point. In addition, specific recommendations are made to GRUAN on hardware, software,and data processing practices to minimise the IWV uncertainty. By combining the uncertainties associated with the input variables in the estimations of the IWV, we calculated the IWV uncertainties for several GRUAN sites with different weather conditions. The results show a similar relative importance of all uncertainty contributions where the uncertainties in the zenith total delay (ZTD) dominate the error budget of the IWV, contributing over 75% of the total IWV uncertainty. The impact of the uncertainty associated with the conversion factor between the IWV and the zenith wet delay (ZWD) is proportional to the amount of water vapour and increases slightly for moist weather conditions. The GRUAN GNSS IWV uncertainty data will provide a quantified confidence to be used for the validation of other measurement techniques.

Författare

Tong Ning

Cadastral and Land Registration Authority

Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ)

Chalmers, Rymd- och geovetenskap, Onsala rymdobservatorium

J Wang

SUNY Albany

Gunnar Elgered

Chalmers, Rymd- och geovetenskap, Rymdgeodesi och geodynamik

G Dick

Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ)

J Wickert

Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ)

M Bradke

Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ)

M Sommer

Deutscher Wetterdienst

Richard Querel

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

D. Smale

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

Atmospheric Measurement Techniques

1867-1381 (ISSN) 1867-8548 (eISSN)

Vol. 9 1 79-92

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Ämneskategorier

Meteorologi och atmosfärforskning

Klimatforskning

Fundament

Grundläggande vetenskaper

Infrastruktur

Onsala rymdobservatorium

DOI

10.5194/amt-9-79-2016

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2018-11-16