Tropospheric Effects Research Articles

Study of tropospheric delay over Indian region from MODIS, NCEP/NCAR data and ground based water vapor measurements at Kolkata

A priori estimation of delays with error variance of atmospheric radio wave propagation is important for precise position estimation and integrity of the system like Global Positioning System (GPS). Tropospheric effects are less severe than the ionospheric counterpart, but behave in a complex manner, making it difficult to isolate them. In this present paper, a ground based radiometer has been utilized to study the characteristics of tropospheric delay and compared it with the MODIS satellite observations over Kolkata (22.57°N, 88.37°E). Results indicate a good agreement between radiometer and MODIS data except the monsoon months. A climatology of spatial and temporal variation of dry and wet tropospheric delay over the Indian subcontinent have also been estimated using MODIS data and NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data for 2008–2012. The spatial variations of dry delay over Indian region are observed to be in the range of 120–250cm with limited seasonal variability. However, the wet delay varies from 20cm in winter months to 45cm during monsoon period in the coastal and central Indian region. Further analysis reveals that the contribution of wet delays in total delay is significant only along the Indo-Gangetic plain. This indicates that extra precaution is needed in handling tropospheric delay for this region due to fast varying nature of water vapor.

BDS triple-frequency carrier-phase linear combination models and their characteristics

An investigation has been made on the models and characteristics of triple-frequency carrier-phase linear combinations for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS). Based on the three frequencies of the BDS, three categories of combinations are developed: ionosphere-free combinations (i.e., those that eliminate the ionospheric effect), minimum-noise combinations (those that mitigate the effects of thermal noise and multiple paths), and troposphere-free combinations (those that mitigate tropospheric effects). Both the ionosphere-free and troposphere-free combinations can be expressed as planes, whereas the minimum-noise combinations can be expressed as a line. The relationships between these three categories of linear combinations are investigated from the perspective of geometry. The angle between the troposphere-free plane and ionosphere-free plane is small, while the angles between the troposphere-free plane and the minimum-noise line, and between the ionosphere-free plane and the minimum-noise line, are large. Specifically, the troposphere-free plane is orthogonal to the minimum- noise line. By introducing the concepts of lane number and integer ionosphere number, the characteristics of the long-wavelength integer combinations and ionosphere-free integer combinations are investigated. The analysis indicates that the longest wavelength that can be formed for integer combinations is 146.53 m, and the ionosphere-free integer combinations all have large noise amplification factors. The ionosphere-free integer combination with minimum noise amplification factor is (0, 62, 59). According to the lane number, integer ionosphere number, and noise amplification factor, optimal integer combinations with different characteristics are presented. For general short baselines and long baselines, three independent integer combinations are suggested.

Implementación de los efectos atmosféricos y de multipath en el desarrollo de un simulador de datos GNSS

The modernization of GPS and the launch of the Galileo system along with other constellations, will improve the positioning precision. The aim of this work is to obtain a GNSS simulator data that to test and update the multifrequency algorithms that are being developed nowadays in different research centres. To obtain this objective, it is necessary to study each of the terms included in the GNSS observation equation. The first part of the simulator consists of emulating the ionospheric, tropospheric effect and multipath. This paper is devoted to each of these effects summarizing what it is, such as modeling and the method chosen for its simulation and its subsequent implementation in a MATLAB script. The final simulator will include the other terms in the equation of observation such as satellite orbits, atomic clocks and SBAS systems

Improved Troposphere Blind Models Based on Numerical Weather Data

The troposphere blind model RTCA MOPS is the minimum operational performance standard for global positioning systems. With a standard deviation of 2.3% of the ZTD, it enables us to mitigate the main part of the tropospheric effect on GNSS signals. Nevertheless, the comparison of RTCA MOPS with modern troposphere models like the ESA model or GPT2 shows the limitation of RTCA MOPS and points out the potential of modern troposphere blind models based on climatological series derived from numerical weather data. The ESA model profits from a more advanced wet delay model and a higher spatial resolution. GPT2 shows the smallest mean bias on surface level in comparison to ray-tracing and IGS data and profits from additional mapping function coefficients – especially if the user is interested in tropospheric delay at low elevation angles. A revision of GPT2 - called GPT2w - combines the benefits of both aforementioned models. Copyright © 2014 Institute of Navigation.

First Preliminary Fast Static Ambiguity Resolution Results of Medium-Baseline with Triple-Frequency Beidou Wavebands

Fast high precision relative Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning is very important to various applications and ambiguity resolution is a key requirement. It has been a continuing challenge to determine and fix GNSS carrier-phase ambiguity, especially for medium- and long-distance baselines. In past research, with dual-frequency band Global Positioning System (GPS), it is almost impossible for fast ambiguity resolution of medium- and long-distance baselines mainly due to the ionospheric and tropospheric effects. With the launch of the BeiDou system, triple-frequency band GNSS observations are available for the first time. This research aims to test the ambiguity resolution performance with BeiDou triple-frequency band observations. In this research, two mathematical models are compared: zenith tropospheric delay as an unknown parameter versus corrected tropospheric delay. The ambiguity resolution performance is investigated in detail with BeiDou observations. Different distance baselines are tested: 45 km, 70 km and 100 km and the performances are investigated with different elevation cut-off angles. Also the performance with BeiDou alone and combined BeiDou and GPS are compared. Experimental results clearly show that with practical observations of triple-frequency bands, ambiguity of medium- or long-distance baselines can be fixed. The results also show that: the performance of ambiguity resolution with an elevation cutoff angle of 20° is much better than that of 15°; The performance with tropospheric effect corrected is slightly better than that with tropospheric effect as an estimated parameter; Dual-frequency band GPS observations will benefit ambiguity resolution of integrated BeiDou and GPS.

Local troposphere augmentation for real-time precise point positioning

The IGS real-time service (RTS) enables real-time precise point positioning (PPP) at a global scale. A long convergence time however is still a challenging factor. In order to reduce the convergence time, external troposphere corrections could be introduced to remove the troposphere effects on the coordinate solution. This paper proposes the use of a local troposphere model to augment real-time PPP. First, undifferenced observations from a network of multiple stations are processed to estimate the station-based troposphere zenith wet delay (ZWD). A set of local troposphere fitting coefficients are then derived using a proposed optimal fitting model. Finally, the determined troposphere fitting coefficients are broadcast to users to reduce the convergence time in the user solution. A continuous operating reference station (CORS) network is utilized to assess the performance of the proposed approach under quiet and active troposphere conditions. The numerical results show that the overall fitting precisions of the local troposphere model can reach 1.42 and 1.05 cm under the two troposphere conditions. The convergence time of the positioning solutions, especially the height solution, can be greatly reduced using the local troposphere model. The horizontal accuracy of 9.2 cm and the vertical accuracy of 10.1 cm are obtainable under the quiet troposphere condition after 20 min of initialization time, compared to the 14.7 cm horizontal and 21.5 cm vertical accuracies in the conventional troposphere estimation approach. Moreover, the horizontal accuracies of 13.0 cm and the vertical accuracies of 12.4 cm have also been obtained after 20 min under the active troposphere condition.

Climate change and its effect on flora and fauna

Climate is a region's general pattern and synthetic atmospheric or weather conditions over a long period. Average temperature and precipitation are the two main factors which determine a region's climate and its effect on people. Small amounts of certain gases play a key role in determining the average temperature and its climate. These gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide and synthetic chlorofluorocarbon. Together these gases are known as greenhouse gases, which allow mostly visible light and some infrared and ultraviolet radiation from the sun to pass through the troposphere. The earth's surface absorbs much of solar energy. This transforms it to longer wavelength infrared radiation which then rises into the troposphere. Some of the heat escapes into space and some is absorbed by molecules of greenhouse gases and emitted into the troposphere in the form of longer wave infrared radiation, which warms the air. This natural warming effect of troposphere is called the greenhouse effect. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests and growing crops release carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. It is of great concern that large input of these gases into troposphere can enhance the earth's natural greenhouse effect and lead to global warming.

대류권 지연이 이중차분법을 이용한 GPS 측위에 미치는 영향

In general, it can be assumed that the tropospheric effect are removed through double-differencing technique in short-baseline GPS data processing. This means that the high-accuracy positioning can be obtained because various error sources can be eliminated and the number of unknown can be decreased in the adjustment computation procedure. As a consequence, short-baseline data processing is widely used in the fields such as deformation monitoring which require precise positioning. However, short-baseline data processing is limited to achieve high positioning accuracy when the height difference between the reference and the rover station is significant. In this study, the effects of tropospheric delays on the determination of short-baseline is analyzed, which depends on the orientation of baseline. The GPS measurements which include tropospheric effect and measurement noises are generated by simulation, and then rover coordinates are computed by short-baseline data processing technique. The residuals of rover coordinates are analyzed to interpret the tropospheric effect on the positioning. The results show that the magnitudes of the biases in the coordinate residuals increase as the baseline length gets longer. The increasing rate is computed as 0.07cm per meter in baseline length. Therefore, the tropospheric effects should be carefully considered in short-baseline data processing when the significant height difference between the reference and rover is observed.

Application of ALOS and Envisat Data in Improving Multi-Temporal InSAR Methods for Monitoring Damavand Volcano and Landslide Deformation in the Center of Alborz Mountains, North Iran

Abstract. InSAR capacity to detect slow deformation over terrain areas is limited by temporal and geometric decorrelations. Multitemporal InSAR techniques involving Persistent Scatterer (Ps-InSAR) and Small Baseline (SBAS) are recently developed to compensate the decorrelation problems. Geometric decorrelation in mountainous areas especially for Envisat images makes phase unwrapping process difficult. To improve this unwrapping problem, we first modified phase filtering to make the wrapped phase image as smooth as possible. In addition, in order to improve unwrapping results, a modified unwrapping method has been developed. This method includes removing possible orbital and tropospheric effects. Topographic correction is done within three-dimensional unwrapping, Orbital and tropospheric corrections are done after unwrapping process. To evaluate the effectiveness of our improved method we tested the proposed algorithm by Envisat and ALOS dataset and compared our results with recently developed PS software (StaMAPS). In addition we used GPS observations for evaluating the modified method. The results indicate that our method improves the estimated deformation significantly.

Sandwich module prototype progress for space solar power

Space solar power (SSP) has been broadly defined as the collection of solar energy in space and its wireless transmission for use on earth. This approach potentially gives the benefit of provision of baseload power while avoiding the losses due to the day/night cycle and tropospheric effects that are associated with terrestrial solar power. Proponents have contended that the implementation of such systems could offer energy security, environmental, and technological advantages to those who would undertake their development. Among recent implementations commonly proposed for SSP, the modular symmetrical concentrator (MSC) and other modular concepts have received considerable attention. Each employs an array of modules for performing conversion of concentrated sunlight into microwaves or laser beams for transmission to earth. While prototypes of such modules have been designed and developed previously by several groups, none have been subjected to the challenging conditions inherent to the space environment and the possible solar concentration levels in which an array of modules might be required to operate. The research described herein details our team's efforts in the development of photovoltaic arrays, power electronics, microwave conversion electronics, and antennas for microwave-based “sandwich” module prototypes. The implementation status and testing results of the prototypes are reviewed.

Tropospheric effects on L‐band geosynchronous circular SAR imaging

Circular synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging on the geosynchronous orbit has significant potential advantages, such as high resolution three-dimensional imaging, large coverage, but it also has challenges to overcome. One major problem limiting the high-resolution geosynchronous circular SAR (GEOCSAR) performances is the atmospheric effects including the tropospheric and ionospheric effects. In this study, the authors mainly consider the tropospheric effects on L-band GEOCSAR imaging. Since the integration time of GEOCSAR may be as long as 24 h, and the coverage can reach 1/3 of the Earth's surface, the effects of the spatial and temporal variation of the tropospheric refractive index cannot be ignored if well focused images are to be obtained. The analysis shows that the temporal variation of the tropospheric refractive index may cause severe degradation of the SAR images; the spatial variation of the refractive index and the tropospheric turbulence are not the important factor limiting the GEOCSAR imaging performance.

Effect of Troposphere and Ionosphere on C-Band Radar Track Data and Correction of Tracking Parameters

At any launch base radar tracking is critical for assessing the state of the launch vehicle for range safety function as well as for trajectory monitoring. Tracking data corrected for refraction effects is essential for estimating the flight performance. This paper presents the refraction effects of troposphere and ionosphere on the radio waves of C-Band radars in terms of errors in the measured tracking parameters. Application of mapping functions for correcting refraction errors in C-Band radar track data is studied and a comparison of the performance of mapping functions is presented. The mapping functions not only show good convergence at low elevations but also correct around 90 per cent of the refraction error in elevation. Defence Science Journal, 2012, 62(6), pp.420-426 , DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.62.1160

Are numerical weather model outputs helpful to reduce tropospheric delay signals in InSAR data?

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar phase data include not only signals due to crustal movements, but also those associated with microwave propagation delay through the atmosphere. In particular, the effect of water vapor can generate apparent signals in the order of a few centimeters or more, and prevent us from detecting such geophysical signals as those due to secular crustal deformation. To examine if and to what extent numerical weather model (NWM) outputs are helpful to reduce the tropospheric delay signals at spatial scales of 5–50 km wavelengths, we compared three approaches of tropospheric signal reduction, using 54 interferograms in central Hokkaido, Japan. The first approach is the conventional topography-correlated delay correction that is based on the regional digital elevation model (DEM). The second approach is based on the Japan Meteorological Agency’s operational meso-scale analysis model (MSM) data, where we compute tropospheric delays and subtract them from the interferogram. However, the MSM data are available at predefined epochs and their spatial resolution is about 10 km; therefore, we need to interpolate both temporally and spatially to match with interferograms. Expecting to obtain a more physically plausible reduction of the tropospheric effects, we ran a 1-km mesh high-resolution numerical weather model WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting model) by ourselves, using the MSM data as the initial and boundary conditions. The third approach is similar to the second approach, except that we make use of the WRF-based tropospheric data. Results show that if the topography-correlated phases are significant, both the conventional DEM-based approach and the MSM-based approach reveal comparable performances. However, when the topography-correlated phases are insignificant, none of the approaches can efficiently reduce the tropospheric phases. Although it could reduce the tropospheric signals in a local area, in none of the case studies did the WRF model produce the “best” performance. Whereas the global atmospheric model outputs are shown to be effective in reducing long-wavelength tropospheric signals, we consider that further improvements are needed for the initial and boundary condition data for high-resolution NWM, so that the NWM-based approach will become more reliable even in the case of a non-stratified troposphere.

Assessment of water vapor retrievals from a GPS receiver network

We present an assessment of a GPS receiver operational network to produce accurate integrated precipitable water vapour (IPWV) during a two-week field experiment carried out in Central Italy around the city of Rome, where different instruments were operative. This experimental activity provided an excellent opportunity to compare the GPS products with independent measurements provided by ground-based and space-based sensors and to evaluate their quality in terms of absolute accuracy of IPWV, analyzing also the spatial scale of GPS estimates. For instance, the assimilation into Numerical Weather Prediction models of IPWV provided by a GPS network or its exploitation in space geodesy applications to correct tropospheric effects requires an accuracy in the order of 0.1 cm to be ascribed to IPWV observations. In this work, we assessed that the accuracy for GPS IPWV estimates is 0.07 cm. Moreover, this experiment has pointed out strengths and limitations of an operational network for the water vapor estimation, such as a proper receiver distribution to achieve the desired spatial resolution and a coverage of GPS stations in both flat and mountains regions.

Comparison of 2D and 3D Electromagnetic Approaches to Predict Tropospheric Turbulence Effects in Clear Sky Conditions

Two-dimensional electromagnetic simulations are often used to evaluate the atmospheric turbulence effects on radiowave propagation in clear sky conditions. However, turbulence is clearly a three-dimensional atmospheric process. Therefore, errors potentially introduced by 2D propagation schemes to predict 3D scintillation effects have to be quantitatively assessed. On the one hand, as part of an analytical approach and starting from the Kolmogorov-von Karman turbulent spectrum, 2D formulations for log-amplitude and phase variances and for log-amplitude and phase temporal power spectra are derived from the 2D scalar propagation equation. They are compared asymptotically to their classical 3D counterparts. On the other hand, as part of a numerical approach, the scintillation effects are evaluated from 3D and 2D parabolic wave equation (PWE) approaches associated with 2D and 1D multiple phase screen (MPS), respectively. It is then shown that 2D propagation schemes underestimate by a factor 1.86 the log-amplitude variances in Fresnel regime and can lead to significant errors in predicting log-amplitude and phase temporal spectra at low frequencies. It is then suggested that the dimensional reduction should be limited to the prediction of log-amplitude and phase variances in Fraunhofer configurations, or to the evaluation of log-amplitude and phase power spectra at high frequencies.

INSAR ATMOSPHERIC DELAY MIGITIGATION BY GPS; CASE STUDY IZMIT EARTQUAKE INTERFEROGRAMS

Abstract. The Propagation delay when radar signals travel from the troposphere has been one of the major limitations for the applications of high accuracy Interferometric Synthetic Aparture Radar (InSAR). In this GPS data used for defining meteorological effects on radio signals. 1999 Izmit earthquake is chosen for the case study of tropospheric effects on InSAR images according to previous studies. Due to process of GPS data with BERNESE tropospheric delay model gained and compared with ROI_PAC processed interferograms and it can easy figured out that the delay amounts are really reliable. As a result of this study, importance of atmospheric change in Turkey climate will be pointed out using SAR and GPS data integration with meteorological aspects.

Assessment of the Ionospheric and Tropospheric Effects in Location Errors of Data Collection Platforms in Equatorial Region during High and Low Solar Activity Periods

The geographical locations of data collection platforms (DCP) in the Brazilian Environmental Data Collection System are obtained by processing Doppler shift measurements between satellites and DCP. When the signals travel from a DCP to a satellite crossing the terrestrial atmosphere, they are affected by the atmosphere layers, which generate a delay in the signal propagation, and cause errors in its final location coordinates computation. The signal propagation delay due to the atmospheric effects consists, essentially, of the ionospheric and tropospheric effects. This work provides an assessment of ionospheric effects using IRI and IONEX models and tropospheric delay compensation using climatic data provided by National Climatic Data Center. Two selected DCPs were used in this study in conjunction with SCD‐2 satellite during high and low solar activity periods. Results show that the ionospheric effects on transmission delays are significant (about hundreds of meters) in equatorial region and should be considered to reduce DCP location errors, mainly in high solar activity periods, while in those due to tropospheric effects the zenith errors are about threemeters. Therefore it is shown that the platform location errors can be reduced when the ionospheric and tropospheric effects are properly considered.

Railway satellite channel at Ku band and above: Composite dynamic modeling for the design of fade mitigation techniques

SUMMARYPast studies on the railway satellite channel (RSC) at Ku band and above consider exclusively the attenuation coming from the metal power arches (PAs) along the railway route, producing significant though deterministic periodical fast fading. Nevertheless, limited attention has been given to model tropospheric effects on the RSC. The present paper takes a more comprehensive view of the RSC by introducing a novel stochastic dynamic model of rain fading in mobile satellite systems on top of the diffraction because of PAs. The proposed approach builds upon well‐established research on rain attenuation time series synthesizers employing stochastic differential equations. It is shown that this propagation tool may provide significant aid, in general, in mobile satellite system simulations and in the design of fade mitigation techniques (FMTs), particularly aiming at the railway scenario. The tool enables the generation of fade events, fade duration statistics, rain attenuation power spectrum and predicting the necessary FMT control loop margin. This is particularly useful for the RSC because most of the proposed FMTs focusing on PAs are not appropriate for compensating atmospheric fading. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of tropical cyclones in the ionosphere from data of sounding by GPS signals

The problems of recording the ionospheric response to tropical cyclones (TCs) and the possibilities for detecting such a response using GPS (Global Positioning System) signals are discussed. Investigations of ionospheric effects of tropical cyclones with the use of different geophysical methods and technologies of GPS application for remote diagnostics of the ionosphere are reviewed. The results of investigating the action of tropical cyclones on the Earth’s ionosphere on the basis of measurements of variations in the total electron content at the global network of ground-based double-frequency GPS receivers are presented. It is shown that (a) the recording of tropospheric effects in the ionosphere is associated with the difficulties of detecting weak disturbances and their identification against the general background of variations and with the problems of identification of sources of such disturbances; (b) geomagnetic storms mask the effects of tropospheric disturbances in the upper ionosphere; and (c) when identifying the ionospheric effects of tropical cyclones, one must pay the bulk of attention to the search for the enhancement of the intensity of disturbances in ionospheric parameter variations.

The challenging retrieval of the displacement field from InSAR data for andesitic stratovolcanoes: Case study of Popocatepetl and Colima Volcano, Mexico

Despite the ability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry to measure ground motion with high-resolution, application of this remote sensing technique to monitor andesitic stratovolcanoes remains limited. Specific acquisition conditions characterizing andesitic stratovolcanoes, mainly vegetated areas with large elevation ranges, induce low signal coherence as well as strong tropospheric artefacts that result in small signal-to-noise ratio. We propose here a way to mitigate these difficulties and improve the SAR measurements. We derive ground motions for two of the most active Mexican stratovolcanoes: Popocatepetl and Colima Volcano, from the time series of SAR data acquired from December 2002 to August 2006. The SAR data are processed using a method that combines both persistent scatterers and small baseline approaches. Stratified tropospheric delays are estimated for each interferogram using inputs from the global atmospheric model NARR, up to a maximum of 10 rad/km. These delays are validated using spectrometer data, as well as the correlation between the wrapped phase and the elevation. The tropospheric effect is removed from the wrapped phase in order to improve the unwrapping process. On Popocatepetl, we observe no significant deformation. The Colima summit area exhibits a constant subsidence rate of more than 1 cm/year centered on the summit but enhanced (reaching more than 2 cm/year) around the 1998 lava flow. We model this subsidence considering both a deflating magma source at depth and the effect of the eruptive deposits load.