Precipitable water vapor estimated using GPS precise point positioning

Abstract

Precipitation water vapor is an important indicator of climate change. It is related to the moisture in the atmosphere. Atmospheric water vapor is one of the primary greenhouse gases, and it plays a critical role in weather forecasting, micrometeorology, and global climate change. Due to their high operational costs, sparse station distribution, and lack of all-weather availability, certain conventional methods of measuring water vapor, such as microwave radiometers and radio-sounding balloons, are limited in their application to modern meteorology. The precipitation water vapor values are can be obtained using Global Positioning System signal delays. The objective of this study is to estimate the zenith wet delay using the Global Positioning System precise point positioning method. Water Vapor can be presented by zenith wet delay. To estimate the strength of the relationship between zenith wet delay from GPS data, the computation of correlation with in situ data from meteorology data has been performed. Using two pair stations (Global positioning system and meteorology station): CMLG-Malang and CPAS-Tretes, the correlation coefficients are strong 0.85 and 0.79, respectively. Finally, GPS data measurement can be a complement to obtain the zenith wet delay and water vapor.