Research of atmospheric profiles inversion by mountain-based GPS occultation

Abstract

Mountain-based GPS occultation technique is a new method to explore the profiles of global meteorological fields of neutral atmosphere, from which we can obtain the atmosphere refractivity, air pressure, density, temperature, and water vapor. So far some research departments have done several occultation experiments on mountains such as mount Wuling in Hebei, mount Wutai in Shanxi and mount Fuji in Japan. From these experiments they successfully obtained the atmospheric refractivity profiles around the mountains. As is known, the altitude of the mountain has a great effect on the mountain-based GPS occultation experiment. And all these mountains referred before have the altitude of more than 2000 meters, so these bring great advantages to their experiments. Since there may not be any high mountains in most regions, applications of mountain with moderate altitude based GPS occultation technique will cover more area of time and space. In this short paper, the mountain-based GPS occultation experiment on the mountain with 870 meters altitude is introduced. In our ten days' experiment, 110 occultation events have been observed, and 41 atmospheric profiles are successfully obtained with the GPS occultation, which suggest that mountain-based GPS occultation experiment could be operated on a relatively low mountain, thus this occultation method could be used in many regions. And by analyzing these successful observational data and unsuccessful observational data, some requirements and matters needing attention in mountain-based GPS occultation are given. These will provide valuable references for the after occultation observations. Finally, in the end of this paper, the prospect of mountain-based GPS occultation is discussed.