John Braun and Chris Rocken GPS Sensed Small Scale Water Vapor Variability in the Southern Great Plains John Braun and Chris Rocken
Outline Network Overview SW Observations vs PW Observations Results Network Location Station Components and Operation SW Observations vs PW Observations Results Tomography Simulations Example 3-D Refractivity Field
Location of Network NOAA GPS network with ARM SGP Region Location of L1 network around ARM SGP Central Facility
GPS Station Components GPS antenna Radio modem antenna GPS receiver/radio modem Solar Panel Battery backup Each station equipped with GPS receiver, radio modem, and power source. No additional infrastructure required.
Station Pictures
Precipitable Water and Slant Water SW can be estimated along single GPS ray paths Simultaneous observations along 10-12 ray paths PW is essentially an average of SW (after they have been scaled to zenith)
Volume Display of Satellite Ray Paths 5 minutes of observations at 30 second epochs
Variation in PW across Network PW deviation with respect to the total PW
Simulated Tomography Layers Input Field Tomography Estimate
Simulated Tomography Tomography Estimate Input Field
Preliminary Tomography Results 500 m layers Lowest 500 m
Conclusions Network of 24 GPS stations installed and continuously operating Less than 10 days of data have been lost due to logistics More than 15 months of observations analyzed Preliminary tomography results are encouraging more vertical resolution needed (combine GPS with other instruments) Specific cases need to be investigated
This work was supported by Acknowledgments This work was supported by DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program and NCAR Advanced Study Program