Abstract
Carrying global positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) receiver, Chinese meteorological satellite Fengyun-3C (FY-3C) was launched on September 23, 2013, which provides new observation data for observations and studies of weather and climate change. In this paper, the results of FY-3C GPS RO atmospheric sounding are presented for the first time, including high-order ionospheric correction, atmospheric parameters estimation, and evaluation by COSMIC and radiosonde observations as well as applications in estimating gravity wave activities. It is found that the effect of the ionospheric correction residual on the phase delay is below 20 mm, which has minimal impact on bending angle estimation and generates differences of about 1 K in the average temperature profile. The difference between FY-3C and COSMIC temperatures at all heights is within 1°C, and the tropopause temperature and height have a good consistency. Deviations from Radiosonde measurements are within 2°C, and the tropopause temperature and height results also have a strong consistency. Furthermore, global gravity wave potential energy is estimated from FY-3C GPS RO, exhibiting similar behavior to results derived from COSMIC radio occultation measurements. The mean value of the gravity wave potential energy near the equator is 10 J/kg and decreases toward the two poles while in the northern hemisphere, it is stronger than that in the southern hemisphere.
Highlights
GPS radio occultation measurements can provide abundant atmospheric parameters like the atmospheric refractive index, pressure, and temperature, which can be used to study the atmospheric structure, variations, and dynamics of the Earth
A variety of low-orbit satellites carrying Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation receivers have been widely used for meteorology and atmospheric studies
Temperature, electron density, geomagnetic intensity, and other parameters are obtained through the models, we can use numerical integration to obtain the GNSS signal path according to equation (10) and obtain the values of the second-order and the third-order ionospheric delays from the GNSS signal path according to equation (8)
Summary
GPS radio occultation measurements can provide abundant atmospheric parameters like the atmospheric refractive index, pressure, and temperature, which can be used to study the atmospheric structure, variations, and dynamics of the Earth. In 1995, the low-orbit satellite Microlab with GPS receiver was launched, and its measurement results showed that the Earth’s atmospheric parameters could be inverted by receiving GPS radio occultation signals, and the accuracy of the retrieving temperature is about 1 K [1, 2]. FY-3C is the second generation of China’s polar-orbit meteorological satellites and belongs to the near-polar solar synchronous orbit It is equipped with a variety of payloads, such as the space environment detector, the solar radiation detector, the Earth radiation detector, the microwave radiometer, the microwave thermometer, the infrared spectrometer, and GNSS radio occultation sounder. The first atmospheric results are presented from FY-3C GPS RO data, including high-order ionospheric effects, atmospheric temperature and pressure, and evaluation with COSMIC and radiosonde observations as well as applications in estimating gravity wave potential energy
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