Tropospheric refraction of radio waves in the Baikal zone in different seasons of the year

Abstract

The possibility of using passive satellite sounding of the atmosphere in order to obtain data of vertical pressure distribution, temperature and relative humidity for modeling the altitude dependence of the refractive index of air is considered. Seasonal parameters of the exponential model of tropospheric refraction over the permanent points of GPS observations of the Baikal region (Irkutsk (IRKM), Ulan-Ude (ULAZ) and Badary, Tunka valley (BADG)) are obtained. Comparative calculations of the angles of refraction in different seasons of 2017 are performed. Calculations showed an insignificant difference in the refraction angles at the points of observation of the Baikal zone in order of magnitude from other climatic zones. In addition to high-precision geodesy, the GPS global positioning method can continuously determine the total zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) which is related to the geometric parameters of refraction and has applications in radio physics and meteorology.