DORIS and GPS monitoring of the Gavdos calibration site in Crete

Due to its specific geographical location as well as its geodetic equipment (DORIS, GNSS, microwave transponder and tide gauges), the Gavdos station in Crete, Greece is one of the very few sites around the world used for satellite altimetry calibration. To investigate the quality of the Gavdos geodetic coordinates and velocities, we analyzed and compared here DORIS and GPS-derived results obtained during several years of observations. The DORIS solution is the latest ignwd11 solution at IGN, expressed in ITRF2008, while the GPS solution was obtained using the GAMIT software package. Current results show that 1–2 mm/yr agreement can be obtained for 3-D velocity, showing a good agreement with current geophysical models. In particular, the agreement obtained for the vertical velocity is around 0.3–0.4 mm/yr, depending on the terrestrial reference frame. As a by-product of these geodetic GPS and DORIS results, Zenith Tropospheric Delays (ZTDs) estimations were also compared in 2010 between these two techniques, and compared to ECMWF values, showing a 6.6 mm agreement in dispersion without any significant difference between GPS and DORIS (with a 97.6% correlation), but with a 13–14 mm agreement in dispersion when comparing to ECMWF model (with only about 90% correlation for both techniques). These tropospheric delay estimations could also provide an external calibration of the tropospheric correction used for the geophysical data of satellite altimetry missions.     

New index of long-term variations of galactic cosmic ray intensity

We find that the soft rigidity spectrum of the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) intensity variations for the maximum epoch and the hard rigidity spectrum for the minimum epoch calculated based on the neutron monitors experimental data (1960–2002) are related with the various dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the GCR particle’s rigidity for different epoch of solar activity. This dependence is stronger in the maximum epoch than in the minimum epoch of solar activity, and is provided by the essential temporal rearrangements of the structure of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) turbulence from the maxima to minima epoch of solar activity. We also show that the rigidity spectrum of GCR intensity variations is harder for the effective rigidities ∼(10–15) GV (by neutron monitors data), than for the effective rigidities ∼(25–30) GV (by neutron monitors and muon telescopes data). A general scenario of GCR modulation versus solar activity is settled on the essential temporal rearrangements of the structure of the IMF turbulence. Therefore, the temporal changes of the power law rigidity spectrum exponent can be considered as a vital (new) index to explain the 11-year variations of the GCR intensity. We assume that ∼(70–80)% of the changes of the amplitudes of the 11-year variations of GCR intensity is related with the changes of the IMF turbulence versus solar activity.     

CNES/GRGS 10-day gravity field models (release 2) and their evaluation

GRACE, designed to monitor temporal variations in the fluid mass at the surface of the Earth, is still operating and providing invaluable data 7 years after launch. One hundred and ninety-nine satellite-only geopotential solutions to degree and order 50 were recomputed per 10-day interval for the period 29 July 2002–27 May 2008 using an improved data editing and solution regularization procedure. These release 2 solutions are significantly improved compared to release 1 solutions, the noise over deserts and oceans in the form of North–South striping being reduced by 20–40%. This is thanks to the tailored regularization of each individual Stokes coefficient applied in the solution procedure, and to a time-variable reference model containing mean annual, semiannual and secular variations for degrees 2–50 towards which the variations per 10-day solution are constrained. It may attenuate signals of the order of a few percent, whereas this always occurs when applying a Gaussian smoother even with a half-width smoothing radius as small as 300 km. The uncertainty of an individual point in the time series of a basin expressed in equivalent water height inferred from the 10-day solutions is approximately 20 mm. Comparison of these 10-day solutions to monthly GRACE project solutions (CSR, GFZ and JPL) shows substantial differences. Even for the largest basin, the Amazon, a 15% difference in annual amplitude is found between CNES release 2 and CSR versus GFZ and JPL. The mass-loss estimates for East and West Greenland vary by 100%. Sometimes clear outliers are detected in the GFZ and JPL solutions when a particular basin is studied, which have to be eliminated. In view of the large differences detected between the time series for specific basins, it is hazardous to draw conclusions based on a single solution.     

Gravity wave propagation studies using the Indian MST radar observations

The Indian MST radar facility at Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E) has been utilised to study the propagation of gravity waves from the troposphere/lower stratosphere to the mesosphere and their interaction with the radar backscattered signal variations. The main objective is to correlate vertically propagating gravity waves derived from the tropospheric velocity fields with the dynamics of mesospheric scattering centres. The tropospheric wind velocities and signal strengths over the entire height range have been subjected to power spectral and wavelet analysis to determine the predominant wave periods/amplitudes and the coupling between the lower atmosphere and mesosphere. Results show that (a) the gravity waves are clearly detectable near tropopause heights, (b) while relatively higher period gravity waves (20–50 min) interact with mesospheric scattering centres, the lower period waves (<20 min) are absorbed in the troposphere itself, (c) the mesospheric scattering layers are affected by gravity waves of complementary periods.     

Tomographic reconstruction of wet and total refractivity fields from GNSS receiver networks

One of the most attractive scientific issues in the use of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals, from a meteorological point of view, is the retrieval of high resolution tropospheric water vapour maps. The real-time (or quasi real-time) knowledge of such distributions could be very useful for several applications, from operative meteorology to atmospheric modelling. Moreover, the exploitation of wet refractivity field reconstruction techniques can be used for atmospheric delay compensation purposes and, as a very promising activity, it could be applied for example to calibrate SAR or Interferometric-SAR (In-SAR) observations for land remote sensing. This is in fact one of the objectives of the European Space Agency project METAWAVE (Mitigation of Electromagnetic Transmission errors induced by Atmospheric Water vapour Effects), in which several techniques are investigated and results were compared to identify a strategy to remove the contribution of water vapour induced propagation delays in In-SAR products. Within this project, the tomographic reconstruction of three dimensional wet refractivity fields from tropospheric delays observed by a local GNSS network (9 dual frequency GPS receivers) deployed over Como area (Italy), during 12–18 October, 2008, was performed. Despite limitations due to the network design, internal consistency tests prove the efficiency of the adopted tomographic approach: the rms of the difference between reconstructed and GNSS observed Zenith Wet Delays (ZWD) are in the order of 4 mm. A good agreement is also observed between our ZWDs and corresponding delays obtained by vertically integrating independent wet refractivity fields, taken by co-located meteorological analysis. Finally, during the observing period, reconstructed vertical wet refractivity profiles evolution reveals water vapour variations induced by simple cloud covering. Even if our main goal was to demonstrate the effectiveness in adopting tomographic reconstruction procedures for the evaluation of propagation delays inside water vapour fields, the actual water vapour vertical variability and its evolution with time is well reproduced, demonstrating also the effectiveness of the inferred 3D wet refractivity fields.     

Retrieval of the change of precipitable water vapor with zenith tropospheric delay in the Chinese mainland

As a preliminary step for assessing the impact of global positioning system (GPS) refractive delay data in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, the GPS zenith tropospheric delays (ZTD) are analyzed from 28 permanent GPS sites in the Chinese mainland. The objectives are to estimate the GPS ZTD and their variability in this area. The differences between radiosonde precipitable water vapor (PWV) and GPS PWV have a standard deviation of 4 mm in delay, a bias of 0.24 mm in delay, and a correlation coefficient of 0.94. The correlation between GPS ZTD and radiosonde PWV amounts to 0.89, indicating that the variety of tropospheric zenith delay can reflect the change of precipitable water vapor. The good agreement also guarantees that the information provided by GPS will benefit the NWP models. The time series of GPS ZTD, which were derived continuously from 2002 to 2004, are used to analyze the change of precipitable water vapor in Chinese mainland. It shows that the general trend of GPS ZTD is diminishing from the south-east coastland to the north-west inland, which is in accordance with the distribution of Chinese annual amount of rainfall. The temporal distribution of GPS ZTD in the Chinese mainland is that the GPS ZTD reaches maximum in summer, and it reaches minimum in winter. The long term differences between the observational data sources require further study before GPS derived data become useful for climate studies.     

Near real-time estimation of tropospheric water vapour content from ground based GNSS data and its potential contribution to weather now-casting in Austria

The importance of high resolution meteorological analysis of the atmosphere increased over the past years. A detailed analysis of the humidity field is an important precondition for a better monitoring of local and regional extreme precipitation events and for forecasts with improved spatial resolution. For this reason, the Austrian Meteorological Agency (ZAMG) is operating the spatial and temporal high resolution INCA system (Integrated Now-casting through Comprehensive Analysis) since begin of 2005. Errors in this analysis occur mainly in the areas of rapidly changing and hard to predict weather conditions or rugged topography with extreme differences in height such as the alpine area of Austria. The aim of this work is to provide GNSS based measurements of the tropospheric water vapour content with a temporal resolution of 1 h and a temporal delay of less than 1 h to assimilate these estimates into the INCA system. Additional requirement is an accuracy of better than 1 mm of the precipitable water (PW) estimates.     

Power variation analysis of echo signals from ionospheric reflectors

A series of Power Virtual Height measurements (PVH) of radio echoes reflected from the ionosphere were acquired at a given frequency during the period 3–22 January 2008 with the purpose of studying the slow fading variations through time of the ionospheric channel. To obtain PVH data, an ionospheric vertical sounding system was suitably adapted to work at a single fixed frequency. PVH measurements were recorded between two routine ionospheric vertical soundings, providing a data type that enables evaluation of fading fluctuation through time. The time stability of the ionospheric layers is determined by analyzing the level of the received signal power within a chosen threshold. In this paper the fading behaviour and its characteristics are described, considering only temporal periodicity above 0.5 s. In a further analysis a relation is demonstrated between the recorded fading and the time stability of the signal within a fixed interval of values.     

量子电压的发展及应用

本文通过对直流电压国家副基准、可编程约瑟夫森直流电压标准、可编程量子低频电压标准、宽量程量子化电压标准、脉冲驱动型量子电压标准及便携式免液氦量子电压标准的描述，主要介绍了我国量子电压副基准的历史、现状、今后的发展及应用前景。     

The effect of total solar eclipse of October 3, 2005, on the total electron content over Europe

GPS observations from EUREF permanent GPS network were used to observe the response of TEC (Total Electron Content) to the total solar eclipse on October 3, 2005, under quiet geomagnetic conditions of the daytime ionosphere. The effect of the eclipse was detected in diurnal variations and more distinctly in the variations of TEC along individual satellite passes. The trough-like variations with a gradual decrease and followed by an increase of TEC at the time of the eclipse were observed over a large region. The depression of TEC amounted to 3–4 TECU. The maximum depression was observed over all stations located at the maximum path of the solar eclipse. The delay of a minimum level of TEC with respect to the maximum phase of the eclipse was about 20–30 min.     

BPL长波授时信号传输时延的时间变化分析

由于GNSS系统的脆弱性,Loran-C/BPL系统作为GNSS系统的备份研究,受到国内外的重视,但如何获取高精度的传播时延一直是制约长波系统实现高精度授时的瓶颈。本文从测量角度出发分析路径时延的空间变化和时间变化,着重利用实际测量数据分析路径时延的时间变化规律。结果表明信号传播路径相似、且传播路径上天气变化相似的条件下相距100km内的用户其接收信号的传播时延时间变化规律基本相同,这为长波差分授时奠定基础。     

The solar eclipse and its associated ionospheric TEC variations over Indian stations on January 15, 2010

An annular solar eclipse occurred over the Indian subcontinent during the afternoon hours of January 15, 2010. This event was unique in the sense that solar activity was minimum and the eclipse period coincides with the peak ionization time at the Indian equatorial and low latitudes. The number of GPS receivers situated along the path of solar eclipse were used to investigate the response of total electron content (TEC) under the influence of this solar eclipse. These GPS receivers are part of the Indian Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) named as ‘GAGAN’ (GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation) program. The eight GPS stations located over the wide range of longitudes allows us to differentiate between the various factors induced due to solar eclipse over the equatorial and low latitude ionosphere. The effect of the eclipse was detected in diurnal variations of TEC at all the stations along the eclipse path. The solar eclipse has altered the ionospheric behavior along its path by inducing atmospheric gravity waves, localized counter-electrojet and attenuation of solar radiation intensity. These three factors primarily control the production, loss and transport of plasma over the equatorial and low latitudes. The localized counter-electrojet had inhibited the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) in the longitude belt of 72°E–85°E. Thus, there was a negative deviation of the order of 20–40% at the equatorial anomaly stations lying in this ‘inhibited EIA region’. The negative deviation of only 10–20% is observed for the stations lying outside the ‘inhibited EIA region’. The pre-eclipse effect in the form of early morning enhancement of TEC associated with atmospheric gravity waves was also observed during this solar eclipse. More clear and distinctive spatial and temporal variations of TEC were detected along the individual satellite passes. It is also observed that TEC starts responding to the eclipse after 30 min from start of eclipse and the delay of the maximum TEC deviation from normal trend with respect to the maximum phase of the eclipse was close to one hour in the solar eclipse path.     

Height and time variability of planetary wave activity

The height–season and year-to-year regularities of parameters of first and second spatial harmonics determine the structure of the stratosphere and mesosphere circulation and its variability. In the period 1992–2002 at heights 0–55 km, the amplitudes and phases of the first and second spatial harmonics in the field of temperature, geopotential height, zonal and meridional wind were calculated by the method of harmonic decomposition. Dispersion (standard or mean square deviation) of their day-to-day and year-to-year variations was calculated by their wavelength constants. Height and season patterns of variability have been estimated. The difference in height–longitude variability for wave numbers m = 1 and 2 has been discovered. At the same time, the intensity of wave disturbances for m = 1 is less than for m = 2 excluding the polar areas, where a significant variability appears at the heights 0–55 km. There is also a tendency for the intensity of year-to-year variations to decrease in comparison with day-to-day variations. In cold and warm periods the amplitude of perturbation waves with m = 2 both for day-to-day and year-to-year variations is greater than for waves with m = 1. Transient height areas in the interval of 20–30 km are more distinct for day-to-day variations of polar area.     

New evidence of solar variation in temperature proxies from Northern Fennoscandia

A new summer temperature proxy was built for northern Fennoscandia in AD 1000–2004 using parameters of tree growth from a large region, extending from the Swedish Scandes to the Kola Peninsula. It was found that century-scale (55–140 year) cyclicity is present in this series during the entire time interval. This periodicity is highly significant and has a bi-modal structure, i.e. it consists of two oscillation modes, 55–100 year and 100–140 year variations. A comparison of the century-long variation in the northern Fennoscandian temperature proxy with the corresponding variations in Wolf numbers and concentration of cosmogenic ¹⁰Be in glacial ice shows that a probable cause of this periodicity is the modulation of regional climate by the secular solar cycle of Gleissberg. This is in line with the results obtained previously for a more limited part of the region (Finnish Lapland: 68–70° N, 20–30° E). Thus the reality of a link between long-term changes in solar activity and climate in Fennoscandia has been confirmed. Possible mechanisms of solar influence on the lower troposphere are discussed.     

Seismo-ionospheric anomalies in total electron content of the GIM and electron density of DEMETER before the 27 February 2010 M8.8 Chile earthquake

In this paper we examine the pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies by the total electron content (TEC) extracted from GIM (global ionospheric map) and the electron density (Ne) observed by the DEMETER (Detection of Electro-Magnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions) satellite during the 2010 M8.8 Chile earthquake. Temporal variations show the nighttime TEC and Ne simultaneously increase 9–19 days before the earthquake. A cross-comparison of data recorded during the period of 1 February to 3 March in 2006–2010 confirms the above temporal anomalies specifically appear in 2010. The spatial analyses show that the anomalies tend to appear over the epicenter.     

CRISTA-NF measurements of water vapor during the SCOUT-O3 Tropical Aircraft Campaign

The new remote sensing experiment CRISTA-NF (Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere – New Frontiers) successfully participated in the SCOUT-O3 Tropical Aircraft Campaign in November and December 2005. CRISTA-NF operated aboard the high-altitude research aircraft M-55 Geophysica. Mid-infrared spectra (4–15 μm) were measured in the limb sounding geometry with high spatial resolution (250 m vertical sampling, 5–15 km along track sampling). Measurements were carried out during transfer flights between Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, and Darwin, Australia, as well as during several local flights near Darwin. Water vapor volume mixing ratios in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere were derived from the CRISTA-NF radiance measurements by utilizing a rapid radiative transfer forward model and the optimal estimation retrieval approach. CRISTA-NF water vapor measurements below the hygropause have a total retrieval error of 15–40% (i.e. root mean square of accuracy and precision). The systematic terms are dominating in the retrieval error budget. The contributions of a priori information to the retrieval results are less than 5–10%. The vertical resolution of the observations is about 250–500 m when permitted by instrument sampling. In this paper we present first results for three transfer flights of the campaign. Being generally in good agreement with corresponding ECMWF operational analyzes, the CRISTA-NF measurements show significantly higher variability and local structures in the upper tropospheric water vapor distributions.     

Effects of physical correlations on long-distance GPS positioning and zenith tropospheric delay estimates

The global positioning system (GPS) has become an essential tool for the high precision navigation and positioning. The quality of GPS positioning results mainly depends on the model’s formulations regarding GPS observations, including both a functional model, which describes the mathematical relationships between the GPS measurements and unknown parameters, and a stochastic model, which reflects the physical properties of the measurements. Over the past two decades, the functional models for GPS measurements have been investigated in considerable detail. However, the stochastic models of GPS observation data are simplified, assuming that all the GPS measurements have the same variance and are statistically independent. Such assumptions are unrealistic. Although a few studies of GPS stochastic models were performed, they are restricted to short baselines and short time session lengths. In this paper, the stochastic modeling for GPS long-baseline and zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) estimates with a 24-h session is investigated using the residual-based and standard stochastic models. Results show that using the different stochastic modelling methods, the total differences can reach as much as 3–6 mm in the baseline component, especially in the height component, and 10 mm in the ZTD estimation. Any misspecification in the stochastic models will result in unreliable GPS baseline and ZTD estimations. Using the residual-based stochastic model, not only the precision of GPS baseline and ZTD estimation is obviously improved, but also the baseline and ZTD estimations are closer to the reference value.     

Study of the ionosphere during a magnetospheric storm using data on the ground and in space

For the magnetospheric storm of May 14–16, 1997 geophysical data of satellites DMSP and IMP-8 are compared with data of radio propagation on the high-latitude HF radio path of Heiss Island – St. Petersburg and data from European ionosondes. Peculiarities of variations of the operational frequencies range MOF–LOF (maximum and lowest observed frequencies) on the path were considered. The range has been determined by the method of oblique ionospheric sounding (OIS). The latter is more informative for observations during a magnetic storm compared to the vertical sounding method. Nevertheless, an analysis of variations of the critical frequency of the ionospheric F2 layer from the chain of European ionosondes was carried out. For interpretation of results, data of magnetospheric parameters, AE-indexes and riometer data were used. The variations of both frequency range on the path and critical frequencies of the F2 layer through the ionosondes chain during the disturbed period had certain regularities of behaviour. These regularities are being explained from the physical point of view. The analysis of the satellite DMSP data has showed that a magnetospheric disturbance causes displacement equatorward of precipitation and some growth of its width and energy.     

High temporal resolution global PWV dataset of 2005–2016 by using a neural network approach to determine the mean temperature of the atmosphere

Atmospheric water vapour plays an important role in phenomena related to the global hydrologic cycle and climate change. However, the rapid temporal–spatial variation in global tropospheric water vapour has not been well investigated due to a lack of long-term, high-temporal-resolution precipitable water vapour (PWV). Accordingly, this study generates an hourly PWV dataset for 272 ground-based International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service (IGS) stations over the period of 2005–2016 using the zenith troposphere delay (ZTD) derived from global-scale GNSS observation. The root mean square (RMS) of the hourly ZTD obtained from the IGS tropospheric product is approximately 4 mm. A fifth-generation reanalysis dataset of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF ERA5) is used to obtain hourly surface temperature (T) and pressure (P), which are first validated with GNSS synoptic station data and radiosonde data, respectively. Then, T and P are used to calculate the water vapour-weighted atmospheric mean temperature (Tm) and zenith hydrostatic delay (ZHD), respectively. T and P at the GNSS stations are obtained via an interpolation in the horizontal and vertical directions using the grid-based ERA5 reanalysis dataset. Here, Tm is calculated using a neural network model, whereas ZHD is obtained using an empirical Saastamoinen model. The RMS values of T and P at the collocated 693 radiosonde stations are 1.6 K and 3.1 hPa, respectively. Therefore, the theoretical error of PWV caused by the errors in ZTD, T and P is on the order of approximately 2.1 mm. A practical comparison experiment is performed using 97 collocated radiosonde stations and 23 GNSS stations equipped with meteorological sensors. The RMS and bias of the hourly PWV dataset are 2.87/?0.16 and 2.45/0.55 mm, respectively, when compared with radiosonde and GNSS stations equipped with meteorological sensors. Additionally, preliminary analysis of the hourly PWV dataset during the EI Niño event of 2014–2016 further indicates the capability of monitoring the daily changes in atmospheric water vapour. This finding is interesting and significant for further climate research.