Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder Research Articles

The Accuracy Assessment and Scientific Research Progress of Ionospheric Radio Occultation Products Observed by Fengyun-3 GNOS

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio Occultation (RO) is a novel detection technique that can provide global ionospheric products with high vertical resolution, high precision, and low cost. In recent years, China has launched the FY3 series of meteorological satellites carrying the first RO payload to simultaneously receive GPS (Global Positioning System) and BDS (BeiDou Navigation System) signals. In the accuracy assessment of RO products observed by GNOS (GNSS Occultation Sounder), the maximum F2-layer electron density (NmF2) of GPS occultation and BDS occultation have a standard deviation (std) of less than 20% in comparison with that of ionosondes. The std of F-layer worst-case ionospheric scintillation index ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S4_{max}^F$</tex-math></inline-formula> ) between COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate) and FY3/GNOS is less than 0.1. The above results prove the high precision of FY3 ionospheric RO products. The RO products have been applied to preliminary scientific research and applications, e.g., the process of main phase and recovery phase of magnetic storms revealed by the NmF2 observed by FY3C/GNOS, the pre-midnight dynamics of F-layer strong scintillation during magnetic storms revealed by GNOS scintillation data, the ionospheric perturbation driven by Tonga volcano eruption revealed by FY3/GNOS, applications of the RO data for the research of sporadic E layers, evaluation of IRI model in statistics and ionospheric climatological characteristics, etc. With the successive network observation and continuous deployment of FY3 meteorological satellites, the continuous improvement of GNOS payload and the BDS system, massive high-precision ionospheric RO products will be developed and show more significant value.

Multisource Assessments of the FengYun-3D Microwave Humidity Sounder (MWHS) On-Orbit Performance

The microwave humidity sounder (MWHS) onboard the Fengyun-3D satellite is providing the data for profiling atmospheric temperature and moisture and has become an important data source for improving the weather forecasts. In this article, three data sources are utilized for assessing the MWHS on-orbit performance, including Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder (GNOS), ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) Re-Analysis (ERA)-Interim reanalysis, and Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) data. GNOS-retrieved atmospheric profiles and the reanalysis data are used as inputs to the community radiative transfer model (CRTM) for simulating the MWHS brightness temperatures at the top of the atmosphere in July 2018 for characterizing the instrument performance. Since ATMS is a well-calibrated microwave sounding instrument onboard both Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 satellites, its measurements are also collocated with MWHS data for a consensus analysis using the simultaneous nadir overpasses (SNOs) method. In comparing GNOS simulations, MWHS upper air temperature sounding channels (3–6) have relatively larger biases (less than 2.5 K) than the water vapor sounding channels. However, the standard deviation of the difference between observations and simulations (O-B) is larger for water vapor sounding channels. For ERA simulations, MWHS sounding channels exhibit negative biases similar to GNOS results but the standard deviation of O-B at the water vapor channels is much smaller. When compared with ATMS water vapor channels, MWHS biases are mostly negative and agree with those from ERA simulation. Thus, the large uncertainty in simulating MWHS water vapor sounding channels from GNOS could result from the poor input water vapor profiles and high water vapor variability in the lower troposphere.

The Impact of Assimilating FY-3C GNOS GPS Radio Occultation Observations on GRAPES Forecasts

In the present study, a gross quality control (QC) procedure is proposed for the Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder (GNOS) Global Positioning System radio occultation (GPS RO) refractivity data to remove abnormal data before they are assimilated. It consists of a climate extreme check removing data outside the range of the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) climate maxima and minima over approximately five years, and a vertical gradient check that rejects profiles containing super-refractions. These two QC steps were applied sequentially to identify outliers in GNOS GPS RO refractivity data during boreal winter 2013/2014. All of the abnormal refractivity profiles and the outliers at each level of the GNOS GPS RO observations were effectively removed by the proposed QC procedure. The post-QC GNOS GPS RO refractivity observations were then assimilated in the Global/Regional Analysis and PrEdiction System (GRAPES) using the three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) system. The impacts of the GNOS refractivity observation on GRAPES analysis and forecasting were evaluated and analyzed using an observation system experiment run over one whole winter season of 2013/2014. The experiment results demonstrated a positive impact of GNOS GPS RO data on analysis and forecast quality. The root mean squared error of GRAPES analysis temperature was reduced by 1% in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) extratropics and in the tropics, and the anomaly correlation scores of the forecasted 500-hPa geopotential height over the SH increased significantly during days 1 to 5. Overall, the benefits of using GNOS GPS RO data are significant in the SH and tropics.

Comparison and Validation of the Ionospheric Climatological Morphology of FY3C/GNOS with COSMIC during the Recent Low Solar Activity Period

With the accumulation of the ionospheric radio occultation (IRO) data observed by Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) occultation sounder (GNOS) onboard FengYun-3C (FY3C) satellite, it is possible to use GNOS IRO data for ionospheric climatology research. Therefore, this work aims to validate the feasibility of FY3C/GNOS IRO products in climatology research by comparison with that of Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC), laying the foundation for its application in climatology study. Since previous verification works of FY3C/GNOS were done by comparison with ionosondes, this work matched NmF2/hmF2 of FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC into data pairs to verify the profile-level accuracy of FY3C/GNOS IRO data. The statistical results show that the overall correlation coefficients of both NmF2 and hmF2 are above 0.9, the overall bias and std of NmF2 differences between FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC are −2.19% and 17.48%, respectively, and the bias and std of hmF2 differences are −3.29 and 18.01 km, respectively, indicating a high profile-level precision consistency between FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC. In ionospheric climatology comparison, we divided NmF2/hmF2 of FY3C/GNOS into four seasons, then presented the season median NmF2/hmF2 in 5° × 10° grids and compared them with that of COSMIC. The results show that the ionospheric climatological characteristics of FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC are highly matched, both showing the typical climatological features such as equatorial ionosphere anomaly (EIA), winter anomaly, semiannual anomaly, Weddell Sea anomaly (WSA) and so on, though minor discrepancies do exist like the differences in magnitude of longitude peak structures and WSA, which verifies the reliability of FY3C/GNOS IRO products in ionospheric climatology research.

Verification of Fengyun-3D MWTS and MWHS Calibration Accuracy Using GPS Radio Occultation Data

The newly launched Fengyun-3D (FY-3D) satellite carries microwave temperature sounder (MWTS) and microwave humidity sounder (MWHS), providing the global atmospheric temperature and humidity measurements. It is important to assess the in orbit performance of MWTS and MWHS and understand their calibration accuracy before using them in numerical weather prediction and many other applications such as hurricane monitoring. This study aims at quantifying the biases of MWTS and MWHS observations relative to the simulations from the collocated Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) data. Using the collocated FY-3C Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder (GNOS) RO data under clear-sky conditions as inputs to Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM), brightness temperatures and viewing angles are simulated for the upper level sounding channels of MWTS and MWHS. In order to obtain O − B statistics under clear sky conditions, a cloud detection algorithm is developed by using the two MWTS channels with frequencies at 50.3 and 51.76 GHz and the two MWHS channels with frequencies centered at 89 and 150 GHz. The analysis shows that for the upper air sounding channels, the mean biases of the MWTS observations relative to the GPS RO simulations are negative for channels 5–9, with absolute values < 1 K, and positive for channels 4 and 10, with values < 0.5 K. For the MWHS observations, the mean biases in brightness temperature are negative for channels 2–6, with absolute values < 2.6 K and relatively small standard deviations. The mean biases are also negative for channels 11–13, with absolute values < 1.3 K, but with relatively large standard deviations. The biases of both MWTS and MWHS show scan-angle dependence and are asymmetrical across the scan line. The biases for the upper air MWTS and MWHS sounding channels are larger than those previously derived for the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder.

Validation of Preliminary Results of Thermal Tropopause Derived from FY-3C GNOS Data

The state-of-art global navigation satellite system (GNSS) occultation sounder (GNOS) onboard the FengYun 3 series C satellite (FY-3C) has been in operation for more than five years. The accumulation of FY-3C GNOS atmospheric data makes it ready to be used in atmosphere and climate research fields. This work first introduces FY-3C GNOS into tropopause research and gives the error evaluation results of long-term FY-3C atmosphere profiles. We compare FY-3C results with Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) and radiosonde results and also present the FY-3C global seasonal tropopause patterns. The mean temperature deviation between FY-3C GNOS temperature profiles and COSMIC temperature profiles from January 2014 to December 2017 is globally less than 0.2 K, and the bias of tropopause height (TPH) and tropopause temperature (TPT) annual cycle derived from both collocated pairs are about 80–100 m and 1–2 K, respectively. Also, the correlation coefficients between FY-3C GNOS tropopause parameters and each radiosonde counterpart are generally larger than 0.9 and the corresponding regression coefficients are close to 1. Multiple climate phenomena shown in seasonal patterns coincide with results of other relevant studies. Our results demonstrate the long-term stability of FY-3C GNOS atmosphere profiles and utility of FY-3C GNOS data in the climate research field.

Application of the Fengyun 3 C GNSS occultation sounder for assessing the global ionospheric response to a magnetic storm event

Abstract. The rapid advancement of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) occultation technology in recent years has made it one of the most advanced space-based remote sensing technologies of the 21st century. GNSS radio occultation has many advantages, including all-weather operation, global coverage, high vertical resolution, high precision, long-term stability, and self-calibration. Data products from GNSS occultation sounding can greatly enhance ionospheric observations and contribute to space weather monitoring, forecasting, modeling, and research. In this study, GNSS occultation sounder (GNOS) results from a radio occultation sounding payload aboard the Fengyun 3 C (FY3-C) satellite were compared with ground-based ionosonde observations. Correlation coefficients for peak electron density (NmF2) derived from GNOS Global Position System (GPS) and Beidou navigation system (BDS) products with ionosonde data were higher than 0.9, and standard deviations were less than 20 %. Global ionospheric effects of the strong magnetic storm event in March 2015 were analyzed using GNOS results supported by ionosonde observations. The magnetic storm caused a significant disturbance in NmF2 level. Suppressed daytime and nighttime NmF2 levels indicated mainly negative storm conditions. In two longitude section zones of geomagnetic inclination between 40 and 80∘, the results of average NmF2 observed by GNOS and ground-based ionosondes showed the same basic trends during the geomagnetic storm and confirmed the negative effect of this storm event on the ionosphere. The analysis demonstrates the reliability of the GNSS radio occultation sounding instrument GNOS aboard the FY3-C satellite and confirms the utility of ionosphere products from GNOS for statistical and event-specific ionospheric physical analyses. Future FY3 series satellites and increasing numbers of Beidou navigation satellites will provide increasing GNOS occultation data on the ionosphere, which will contribute to ionosphere research and forecasting applications.

Validation results of maximum S4 index in F-layer derived from GNOS on FY3C satellite

The first Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Occultation Sounder (GNOS) compatible with both BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and Global Positioning System was successfully launched into orbit on September 23, 2013, which was mounted on the FengYun-3C (FY3C) satellite. FY3C/GNOS has produced a lot of ionospheric radio occultation (RO) scintillation data until now. This work was conducted to verify the accuracy of the scintillation data observed by FY3C/GNOS for monitoring of the GNSS signal attenuation and early warning of the possible GNSS signal interruption, thus laying the foundation for research on ionospheric space weather. In this work, the ionospheric F-layer maximum scintillation indexes S4 (\(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\)) probed by FY3C/GNOS and Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) are matched into data pairs by data matching criterions during January 10, 2014 and January 9, 2015, which allow the comparison and error analysis of \(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\) indexes between FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC. We find that FY3C/GNOS overestimates the \(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\) data compared to that of COSMIC, and the biases and standard deviations (Stds) of the differences between the two \(S4_{{{\text{max}}}}^{{\text{F}}}\) indexes (FY3C/GNOS-COSMIC) in data pairs are 0.004 and 0.063 in the whole day, 0.007 and 0.080 at nighttime, 0.001 and 0.046 at daytime, respectively. The statistical error results verify the precision consistency of the ionospheric RO scintillation data between FY3C/GNOS and COSMIC. The errors at nighttime are larger than those in the whole day and daytime, which is probably due to time-varying ionospheric irregularities after midnight and disparity of the data matching criterions. Since the deployment of FY3 series satellites, GNOS can contribute more scintillation data to the international ionospheric research and forecasting of ionospheric space weather.

The FengYun-3C radio occultation sounder GNOS: a review of the mission and its early results and science applications

Abstract. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Occultation Sounder (GNOS) is one of the new-generation payloads on board the Chinese FengYun 3 (FY-3) series of operational meteorological satellites for sounding the Earth's neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. FY-3C GNOS, on board the FY-3 series C satellite launched in September 2013, was designed to acquire setting and rising radio occultation (RO) data by using GNSS signals from both the Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and the US Global Positioning System (GPS). So far, the GNOS measurements and atmospheric and ionospheric data products have been validated and evaluated and then been used for atmosphere- and ionosphere-related scientific applications. This paper reviews the FY-3C GNOS instrument, RO data processing, data quality evaluation, and preliminary research applications according to the state-of-the-art status of the FY-3C GNOS mission and related publications. The reviewed data validation and application results demonstrate that the FY-3C GNOS mission can provide accurate and precise atmospheric and ionospheric GNSS (i.e., GPS and BDS) RO profiles for numerical weather prediction (NWP), global climate monitoring (GCM), and space weather research (SWR). The performance of the FY-3C GNOS product quality evaluation and scientific applications establishes confidence that the GNOS data from the series of FY-3 satellites will provide important contributions to NWP, GCM, and SWR scientific communities.

Validation results of NmF2 and hmF2 derived from ionospheric density profiles of GNOS on FY-3C satellite

The first Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder (GNOS) which is compatible of both BeiDou System (BDS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) was successfully launched into orbit onboard the FengYun 3 C satellite (FY-3C) on September 23, 2013, and it has already gathered a large amount of ionosphere radio occultation (RO) data so far. However, the detailed analysis and validation of GPS ionosphere RO data have not been done up to now. Therefore, this paper discusses the configuration of the FY-3C GNOS, the methods and results of GPS ionosphere occultation processment, the quality analysis of the GPS ionosphere RO products, and the precision consistency between the GNOS GPS ionosphere RO product and ionosonde data. The peak electron density (NmF2) correlation coefficient is 0.97, the corresponding standard deviation is 16.08%. The peak value altitude (hmF2) correlation coefficient is 0.89, and the corresponding standard deviation is 23.79 km. The in-orbit operation of GNOS provides a basis data set for the monitoring, forecasting and research of ionosphere’s space weather.

Evaluation of atmospheric profiles derived from single- and zero-difference excess phase processing of BeiDou radio occultation data from the FY-3C GNOS mission

Abstract. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Occultation Sounder (GNOS) is one of the new-generation payloads onboard the Chinese FengYun 3 (FY-3) series of operational meteorological satellites for sounding the Earth's neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. The GNOS was designed for acquiring setting and rising radio occultation (RO) data by using GNSS signals from both the Chinese BeiDou System (BDS) and the US Global Positioning System (GPS). An ultra-stable oscillator with 1 s stability (Allan deviation) at the level of 10−12 was installed on the FY-3C GNOS, and thus both zero-difference and single-difference excess phase processing methods should be feasible for FY-3C GNOS observations. In this study we focus on evaluating zero-difference processing of BDS RO data vs. single-difference processing, in order to investigate the zero-difference feasibility for this new instrument, which after its launch in September 2013 started to use BDS signals from five geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites, five inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites and four medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites. We used a 3-month set of GNOS BDS RO data (October to December 2013) for the evaluation and compared atmospheric bending angle and refractivity profiles, derived from single- and zero-difference excess phase data, against co-located profiles from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analyses. We also compared against co-located refractivity profiles from radiosondes. The statistical evaluation against these reference data shows that the results from single- and zero-difference processing are reasonably consistent in both bias and standard deviation, clearly demonstrating the feasibility of zero differencing for GNOS BDS RO observations. The average bias (and standard deviation) of the bending angle and refractivity profiles were found to be about 0.05 to 0.2 % (and 0.7 to 1.6 %) over the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Zero differencing was found to perform slightly better, as may be expected from its lower vulnerability to noise. The validation results indicate that GNOS can provide, on top of GPS RO profiles, accurate and precise BDS RO profiles both from single- and zero-difference processing. The GNOS observations by the series of FY-3 satellites are thus expected to provide important contributions to numerical weather prediction and global climate change analysis.

In-orbit performance of GNOS on-board FY3-C and the enhancements for FY3-D satellite

The Global Navigation Satellite system Occultation Sounder (GNOS) instrument on each of the Fengyun 3 (FY3) series meteorology satellites is a global navigation satellite system radio occultation (RO) payload used for remote sensing of the earth’s neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. The GNOS, the world’s first RO sounder compatible with both the BeiDou (BD) navigation satellite System (BDS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS), can observe around 700 (500GPS+200BDS) RO events per day. This payload can receive BDS/GPS dual-frequency signals using the B1/B2 closed-loop (CL), GPS L2 semi-codeless, GPS L2C CL, GPS L1 C/A CL, and GPS L1 C/A open-loop (OL) tracking methods. This paper assesses the in-orbit performance of the Fengyun 3-C satellite (FY3-C) GNOS instrument, including the warm start time, the number of satellites tracked for positioning, carrier phase measurement errors, open-loop tracking performance, real-time navigation error analysis, the number and distribution of occultation events and Precise Orbit Determination (POD) error statistics, and illustrates the performances’ results which shows the stability and feasibility of FY3-C GNOS. Moreover, the enhancements to be implemented on the Fengyun 3 D (FY3-D) satellite for a planned September 2017 launch include extended occultation channel numbers, open-loop tracking for both L2C and B1I carrier phases, and optimized antenna patterns.

Orbit determination using real tracking data from FY3C-GNOS

China is currently developing the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, also known as BDS. The nominal constellation of BDS (regional), which had been able to provide preliminary regional positioning and navigation functions, was composed of fourteen satellites, including 5 GEO, 5 IGSO and 4 MEO satellites, and was realized by the end of 2013. Global navigation satellite system occultation sounder (GNOS) on board the Fengyun3C (FY3C) satellite, which is the first BDS/GPS compatible radio occultation (RO) sounder in the world, was launched on 23 September 2013. The GNOS instrument is capable of tracking up to 6 BeiDou satellites and more than 8GPS satellites. We first present a quality analysis using 1-week onboard BDS/GPS measurements collected by GNOS. Satellite visibility, multipath combination and the ratio of cycle slips are analyzed. The analysis of satellite visibility shows that for one week the BDS receiver can track up to 6 healthy satellites. The analysis of multipath combinations (MPC) suggests more multipath present for BDS than GPS for the CA code (B1 MPC is 0.597m, L1 MPC is 0.326m), but less multipath for the P code (B2 MPC is 0.421m, L2 MPC is 0.673m). More cycle slips occur for the BDS than for the GPS receiver as shown by the ratio of total satellites/cycle slips observed over a 24h period. Both the maximum value and average of the ratio of cycle slips based on BDS measurements is 72/50.29, which is smaller than 368/278.71 based on GPS measurements. Second, the results of reduced dynamic orbit determination using BDS/GPS code and phase measurements, standalone BDS SPP (Single Point Positioning) kinematic solution and real-time orbit determination using BDS/GPS code measurements are presented and analyzed. Using an overlap analysis, the orbit consistency of FY3C-GNOS is about 3.80cm. The precision of BDS only solutions is about 22cm. The precision of FY3C-GNOS orbit with the Helmert variance component estimation are improved slightly after the BDS observations are added for one week (October 10–16, 2013). In the three-dimensional direction, the orbit precision is respectively improved by 0.31cm. BDS code observations already allow a standalone positioning with RMS accuracy of at least 22m using BDS broadcast ephemeris, while the accuracy is at least 5m using BDS precise ephemeris. The standard deviations of differences of real-time orbit determination with the Dynamic Model Compensation using BDS/GPS, GPS, and BDS code measurements are 1.24m, 1.27m and 6.67m in three-dimensional direction, respectively. It can slightly improve convergence time for real-time orbit determination by 17s after the BDS observations are added. And it can also slightly improve the accuracy of real-time orbit determination by 0.03m. The results obtained in this paper are already rather promising.

First Ionospheric Radio-Occultation Measurements From GNSS Occultation Sounder on the Chinese Feng-Yun 3C Satellite

The Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder (GNOS) has been planned for the five Feng-Yun 3 series (FY3) weather satellites since 2013, the first of which, the FY3C satellite, was launched successfully at 03:07 UTC on September 23, 2013 from the Taiyuan Satellite Base, Shanxi province, China, into the orbit of 836-km altitude and 98.75° inclination. In addition to the Global Positioning System (GPS), the FY3C/GNOS is capable of tracking the occultation signal of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) (also called COMPASS) from space for the first time. The quality of BDS radio occultation (RO) has been verified in terms of signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, the electron density profiles (EDPs) observed by FY3C/GNOS from both GPS RO and BDS RO, which were processed and archived in the National Satellite Meteorological Center of China Meteorological Administration, are compared with 32 globally distributed ionosonde observations, and then, we compare GPS RO EDPs with ionosonde observations at Mohe (52.0° N, 122.5° E), Beijing (40.3° N, 116.2° E), Wuhan (31.0° N, 114.5° E), and Sanya (18.3° N, 109.6° E). FY3C/GNOS EDPs show good agreement with ionosonde measurements, with larger discrepancies near the equatorial ionization anomaly region at Wuhan and Sanya. The ionospheric peak density (NmF2) and peak height (hmF2) derived from FY3C/GNOS EDPs are also compared with those obtained from the globally distributed ionosondes for the day of year 274–365 in 2013. In general, NmF2 and hmF2 have a higher correlation coefficient in the middle–high latitude than in the lower latitude region, due to the difference of ionospheric horizontal inhomogeneity. We also compared the NmF2 and hmF2 maps between FY3C/GNOS and the International Reference Ionosphere 2012 (IRI-2012) model. However, the wavenumber-4 structure, which can be indicated clearly from FY3C/GNOS observations, could not be reproduced well by IRI-2012. Further investigations show that the nighttime EDPs have obvious ionization enhancement around the ionospheric E layer over the Aurora and the South Atlantic Anomaly regions due to the energetic particle precipitation indicated by the Space Environment Monitor observations onboard FY3C.

Preliminary validation of the refractivity from the new radio occultation sounder GNOS/FY-3C

Abstract. As a new member of the space-based radio occultation sounders, the GNOS (Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder) mounted on Fengyun-3C (FY-3C) has been carrying out atmospheric sounding since 23 September 2013. GNOS takes approximately 800 daily measurements using GPS (Global Positioning System) and Chinese BDS (BeiDou navigation satellite) signals. In this work, the atmospheric refractivity profiles from GNOS were compared with the ones obtained from the co-located ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) reanalysis. The mean bias of the refractivity obtained through GNOS GPS (BDS) was found to be approximately −0.09 % (−0.04 %) from the near surface to up to 46 km. While the average standard deviation was approximately 1.81 % (1.26 %), it was as low as 0.75 % (0.53 %) in the range of 5–25 km, where best sounding results are usually achieved. Further, COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate) and MetOp/ GRAS (GNSS Receiver for Atmospheric Sounding) radio occultation data were compared with the ECMWF reanalysis; the results thus obtained could be used as reference data for GNOS. Our results showed that GNOS/FY-3C meets the design requirements in terms of accuracy and precision of the sounder. It possesses a sounding capability similar to COSMIC and MetOp/GRAS in the vertical range of 0–30 km, though it needs further improvement above 30 km. Overall, it provides a new data source for the global numerical weather prediction (NWP) community.

For the first time fengyun3 C satellite-global navigation satellite system occultation sounder achieved spaceborne Bei Dou system radio occultation

The radio occultation (RO) technique using signals from the global navigation satellite system, is widely used to observe the atmosphere for applications such as numerical weather prediction (NWP) and global climate monitoring. Since 1995, there have been turborogue sounder on board global positioning system/meteorology, black jack sounder on board challenging minisatellite payload and gravity recovery and climate experiment, IGOR sounder on board constellation observing system for meteorology, ionosphere and climate, GRAS on board meteorological operational, which have been recieving a large number of RO data, but their observed signals come only from global positioning system (GPS). These RO data have been wildly used in NWP and climate monitoring, however they cannot meet the requirements for high accuracy and real time atmosphere observation, in this case compatible RO sounder to obtain more RO observations is significant. Global navigation satellite system occultation sounder (GNOS) on board the fengyun3 C (FY3 C) satellite, which is the first Bei Dou system (BDS)/GPS compatible RO sounder in the world, was launched on 23 September 2013. Up to now, lots of RO observations have been obtained. In this study, the components of GNOS are introduced; one-day GNOS RO events and their global distribution are analyzed; compared with the GPS RO observations, the accuracy and consistency of BDS real-time positioning results and BDS RO products are analyzed. The preliminary results show that the BDS can enhance the number of RO events by 33.3%; the average deviation and standard deviation of BDS real time positioning results are 6 m and 7 m, respectively; the BDS/GPS difference standard deviation of refrectivity, temperature, humidity, pressure and ionospheric electron density are lower than 2%, 2 K, 1.5 g/kg, 2%, and 15.6%, respectively. The BDS observations/products are consistent with those of GPS, therefore BDS RO products can bring benefit to numerical wheather prediction and global chlimate change analysis.

An introduction to the FY3 GNOS instrument and mountain-top tests

Abstract. The FY3 (Feng-Yun-3) GNOS (GNSS Occultation Sounder) mission is a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) radio occultation mission of China for remote sensing of Earth's neutral atmosphere and the ionosphere. GNOS will use both the global positioning system (GPS) and the Beidou navigation satellite systems on the China Feng-Yun-3 (FY3) series satellites. The first FY3-C was launched at 03:07 UTC on 23 September 2013. GNOS was developed by the Center for Space Science and Applied Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CSSAR). It will provide vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature, pressure, and humidity, as well as ionospheric electron density profiles on a global basis. These data will be used for numerical weather prediction, climate research, and ionospheric research and space weather. This paper describes the FY3 GNOS mission and the GNOS instrument characteristics. It presents simulation results of the number and distribution of GNOS occultation events with the regional Beidou constellation and the full GPS constellation, under the limitation of the GNOS instrument occultation channel number. This paper presents the instrument performance as derived from analysis of measurement data in laboratory and mountain-based occultation validation experiments at Mt. Wuling in Hebei Province. The mountain-based GNSS occultation validation tests show that GNOS can acquire or track low-elevation radio signal for rising or setting occultation events. The refractivity profiles of GNOS obtained during the mountain-based experiment were compared with those from radiosondes. The results show that the refractivity profiles obtained by GNOS are consistent with those from the radiosonde. The rms of the differences between the GNOS and radiosonde refractivities is less than 3%.

An introduction to China FY3 radio occultation mission and its measurement simulation

GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) radio occultation mission for remote sensing of the Earth’s atmosphere will be performed by GNOS (GNSS Occultation Sounder) instrument on China FengYun-3 (FY3) 02 series satellites, the first of which FY3-C will be launched in the year 2013. This paper describes the FY3 GNOS mission and presents some results of measurement simulation. The key designed specifications of GNOS are also shown. The main objective of simulation is to provide scientific support for GNOS occultation mission on the FY3-C satellites. We used EGOPS software to simulate occultation measurements according to GNOS designed parameters. We analyzed the accuracy of retrieval profiles based on two typical occultation events occurring in China South–East area among total simulated events. Comparisons between the retrieval atmospheric profiles and background profiles show that GNOS occultation has high accuracy in the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The sensitivities of refractivity to three types of instrumental error, i.e. Doppler biases, clock stability and local multipath, were analyzed. The results indicated that the Doppler biases introduced by along-ray velocity error and GNOS clock error were the primary error sources for FY3-C occultation mission.