Abstract
Abstract. Acquiring accurate atmospheric water vapor spatial information remains one of the most challenging tasks in meteorology. The tomographic technique is a powerful tool for modeling atmospheric water vapor and monitoring the water vapor spatial and temporal distribution/variation information. This paper presents a study on the monitoring of water vapor variations using tomographic techniques based on multi-source water vapor data, including GPS (Global Positioning System), radiosonde, WVR (water vapor radiometer), NWP (numerical weather prediction), AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) sun photometer and synoptic station measurements. An extensive investigation has been carried out using multi-source data collected from May to October 2013 in Hong Kong. With the use of radiosonde observed profiles, five different vertical a priori information schemes were designed and examined. Analysis results revealed that the best vertical constraint is to employ the average radiosonde profiles over the 3 days prior to the tomographic time and that the assimilation of multi-source data can increase the tomography modeling accuracy. Based on the best vertical a priori information scheme, comparisons of slant wet delay (SWD) measurements between GPS data and multi-observational tomography showed that the root mean square error (RMSE) of their differences is 10.85 mm. Multi-observational tomography achieved an accuracy of 7.13 mm km−1 when compared with radiosonde wet refractivity observations. The vertical layer tomographic modeling accuracy was also assessed using radiosonde water vapor profiles. An accuracy of 11.44 mm km−1 at the lowest layer (0–0.4 km) and an RMSE of 3.30 mm km−1 at the uppermost layer (7.5–8.5 km) were yielded. At last, a test of the tomographic modeling in a torrential storm occurring on 21–22 May 2013 in Hong Kong demonstrated that the tomographic modeling is very robust, even during severe precipitation conditions.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
