Monitoring coastal sea level using reflected GNSS signals

A continuous monitoring of coastal sea level changes is important for human society since it is predicted that up to 332 million people in coastal and low-lying areas will be directly affected by flooding from sea level rise by the end of the 21st century. The traditional way to observe sea level is using tide gauges that give measurements relative to the Earth’s crust. However, in order to improve the understanding of the sea level change processes it is necessary to separate the measurements into land surface height changes and sea surface height changes. These measurements should then be relative to a global reference frame. This can be done with satellite techniques, and thus a GNSS-based tide gauge is proposed. The GNSS-based tide gauge makes use of both GNSS signals that are directly received and GNSS signals that are reflected from the sea surface. An experimental installation at the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) shows that the reflected GNSS signals have only about 3 dB less signal-to-noise-ratio than the directly received GNSS signals. Furthermore, a comparison of local sea level observations from the GNSS-based tide gauge with two stilling well gauges, located approximately 18 and 33 km away from OSO, gives a pairwise root-mean-square agreement on the order of 4 cm. This indicates that the GNSS-based tide gauge gives valuable results for sea level monitoring.     

Evaluation and improvement of coastal GNSS reflectometry sea level variations from existing GNSS stations in Taiwan

Global sea level rise due to an increasingly warmer climate has begun to induce hazards, adversely affecting the lives and properties of people residing in low-lying coastal regions and islands. Therefore, it is important to monitor and understand variations in coastal sea level covering offshore regions. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) have been successfully used to robustly derive sea level heights (SLHs). In Taiwan, there are a number of continuously operating GNSS stations, not originally installed for sea level monitoring. They were established in harbors or near coastal regions for monitoring land motion. This study utilizes existing SNR data from three GNSS stations (Kaohsiung, Suao, and TaiCOAST) in Taiwan to compute SLHs with two methods, namely, Lomb–Scargle Periodogram (LSP)-only, and LSP aided with tidal harmonic analysis developed in this study. The results of both methods are compared with co-located or nearby tide gauge records. Due to the poor quality of SNR data, the worst accuracy of SLHs derived from traditional LSP-only method exceeds 1?m at the TaiCOAST station. With our procedure, the standard deviations (STDs) of difference between GNSS-derived SLHs and tide gauge records in Kaohsiung and Suao stations decreased to 10?cm and the results show excellent agreement with tide gauge derived relative sea level records, with STD of differences of 7?cm and correlation coefficient of 0.96. In addition, the absolute GNSS-R sea level trend in Kaohsiung during 2006–2011 agrees well with that derived from satellite altimetry. We conclude that the coastal GNSS stations in Taiwan have the potential of monitoring absolute coastal sea level change accurately when our proposed methodology is used.     

Deformation monitoring using GNSS-R technology

GNSS reflectometry (GNSS-R) has been widely studied in recent years for various applications, such as soil moisture monitoring, biomass analysis, and sea state monitoring. This paper presents the concept of a novel application of using GNSS-R technology for deformation monitoring. Instead of installing GNSS on the deformation body to sense the movement, GNSS-R deformation monitoring system estimates the deformation from receiving GNSS signal reflected by the deformation body remotely. A prototype of GNSS-R deformation monitoring system has been developed based on GNSS software receiver technology. A 3D geometrical model of GNSS signal reflection has been used to reveal the relationship between the change of carrier phase difference and deformation. After compensating the propagation path delay changes caused by satellite movement, the changes in the remaining carrier phase difference are linked to the deformation. Field tests have been carried using the GNSS-R system developed and the results show sub-centimeter level deformation can be observed with the new technology. Unlike other GNSS deformation monitoring methods, GNSS-R receivers are not installed on the slope which makes this new technology more attractive.     

A DORIS determination of the absolute velocities of the Sorsdal and Mellor glaciers in Antarctica

The Lambert–Amery System is the largest glacier–ice shelf system in East Antarctica, draining a significant portion of the ice sheet. Variation in ice sheet discharge from Antarctica or Greenland has an impact on the rate of change in global mean sea level; which is a manifestation of climate change. In conjunction with a measure of ice thickness change, ice sheet discharge can be monitored by determining the absolute velocities of these glaciers.     

The challenges in long-term altimetry calibration for addressing the problem of global sea level change

Long-term change of the global sea level resulting from climate change has become an issue of great societal interest. The advent of the technology of satellite altimetry has modernized the study of sea level on both global and regional scales. In combination with in situ observations of the ocean density and space observations of Earth’s gravity variations, satellite altimetry has become an essential component of a global observing system for monitoring and understanding sea level change. The challenge of making sea level measurements with sufficient accuracy to discern long-term trends and allow the patterns of natural variability to be distinguished from those linked to anthropogenic forcing rests largely on the long-term efforts of altimeter calibration and validation. The issues of long-term calibration for the various components of the altimeter measurement system are reviewed in the paper. The topics include radar altimetry, the effects of tropospheric water vapor, orbit determination, gravity field, tide gauges, and the terrestrial reference frame. The necessity for maintaining a complete calibration effort and the challenges of sustaining it into the future are discussed.     

Monitoring atomic clocks on board GNSS satellites

A method for monitoring atomic clocks on board Global Navigation Satellites System (GNSS) satellites is described to address the issue of clock related signal integrity in safety–critical applications of GNSS. The carrier-phase time transfer is employed in the clock monitoring method which enables tight tracking of the satellite onboard clocks and thus improves detectability of clock anomalies. Detecting onboard clock anomalies requires the ability to monitor clocks in real time, and a Kalman filter can then be utilized to estimate the phase offsets between the satellite clocks and ground clocks. This study, using the difference between the measured and predicted phase offset as a test statistic, sets a threshold for clock anomalies based on the prediction interval approach. Finally the validity of the monitoring method is examined by processing a set of real GNSS data that includes two recent incidents of clock anomalies in GNSS satellites.     

Characterisation of residual ionospheric errors in bending angles using GNSS RO end-to-end simulations

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) is an innovative meteorological remote sensing technique for measuring atmospheric parameters such as refractivity, temperature, water vapour and pressure for the improvement of numerical weather prediction (NWP) and global climate monitoring (GCM). GNSS RO has many unique characteristics including global coverage, long-term stability of observations, as well as high accuracy and high vertical resolution of the derived atmospheric profiles. One of the main error sources in GNSS RO observations that significantly affect the accuracy of the derived atmospheric parameters in the stratosphere is the ionospheric error. In order to mitigate the effect of this error, the linear ionospheric correction approach for dual-frequency GNSS RO observations is commonly used. However, the residual ionospheric errors (RIEs) can be still significant, especially when large ionospheric disturbances occur and prevail such as during the periods of active space weather. In this study, the RIEs were investigated under different local time, propagation direction and solar activity conditions and their effects on RO bending angles are characterised using end-to-end simulations. A three-step simulation study was designed to investigate the characteristics of the RIEs through comparing the bending angles with and without the effects of the RIEs. This research forms an important step forward in improving the accuracy of the atmospheric profiles derived from the GNSS RO technique.     

南极中山站宇宙线观测

2014年由两个具有0.5m×0.5m闪烁体面积的探测器组成的宇宙线μ子望远镜在南极中山站建成,观测数据通过卫星链路传回并发布.通过对中山站μ子望远镜数据的气象效应分析,发现中山站的气压变化对宇宙线计数率影响显著并呈负相关.计算得到宇宙线高能质子在中山站的垂直截止刚度R_C为0.076GV,对比中国西藏羊八井和北京高能质子的垂直截止刚度,中山站非常有利于对太阳高能质子事件的观测.      

Atmospheric correction of satellite altimetry observations and sea-level variability in the NE Atlantic

Satellite altimetry provides continuous and spatially regular measurements of the height of the sea surface. Sea level responds to density changes of the water, to mass changes, due to addition or reduction of water mass, and to changes in the atmosphere above it. The present study examines the influence of atmospheric effects on sea-level variability in the North-East Atlantic. The association between the height of the sea surface and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is investigated by considering different sets of altimetry measurements for which the atmospheric effects have been handled differently. Altimetry data not corrected for atmospheric effects are strongly anti-correlated with the state of the NAO, reflecting the hydrostatic response of sea-level to the NAO pressure dipole. The application of an atmospheric correction to satellite altimetry observations in the NE Atlantic decreases variability of the height time series by more than 70% and reduces the amplitude of the seasonal cycle by ∼5 cm. Altimetry data for which atmospheric effects are removed via an inverse barometer correction show a non-negligible correlation with the NAO index at some locations suggesting further indirect non-hydrostatic influences of the state of the NAO on sea level variability.     

Sea level trend over Malaysian seas from multi-mission satellite altimetry and vertical land motion corrected tidal data

Rise in sea levels is one of the disastrous effects of climate change. A relatively small increase in sea level could affect natural coastal systems. In a study of long-term changes in sea level and measurements of postglacial rebound, monitoring vertical land motion (VLM) is of crucial interest. This study presents an approach to estimate precise sea level trends based on a combination of multi-sensor techniques in the Malaysian region over 19?years. In this study, satellite altimeters (SALT) were used to derive absolute sea levels (ASLs). Tide gauge (TG) stations along the coast of Malaysia were utilised to derive the rate of relative sea levels using sea level changes and VLMs. To obtain ASL at TGs, VLM at these stations were computed using Global Positioning System (GPS), Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS InSAR), and SALT minus TG. The computed VLMs mostly show similarities in signs rather than magnitude. The findings from the multi-sensor techniques showed that regional sea level trends ranged from 2.65?±?0.86?mm/yr to 6.03?±?0.79?mm/yr for chosen sub-areas, with an overall mean of 4.47?±?0.71?mm/yr and overall subsidence. This information is expected to be valuable for a wide variety of climatic applications and for studying environmental issues related to flooding and global warming in Malaysia.     

A point-wise least squares spectral analysis (LSSA) of the Caspian Sea level fluctuations,using TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 observations

The Caspian Sea has displayed considerable fluctuations in its water level during the past century. Knowledge of such fluctuation is vital for understanding the local hydrological cycles, climate of the region, and construction activities within the sea and along its shorelines. This study established a point-wise satellite altimetry approach to monitor the fluctuations of the Caspian Sea using a complete dataset of TOPEX/Poseidon for the period 1993 to the middle of 2002, and its follow-on Jason-1 for the period 2002 to August 2009. Therefore, 280 virtual time-series were constructed to monitor the fluctuations. The least squares spectral analysis (LSSA) method is, then employed to find the most significant frequencies of the time-series, while the statistical method of principle component analysis (PCA) is applied to extract the dominant variability of level variations. The study also used the observations of TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 over the Volga River along with 5 years of Volga’s water discharge to study its influence on the Caspian Sea level changes. The LSSA results indicate that the lunar semidiurnal (M2) and the Sun semidiurnal (S2) frequencies are the main tidal frequencies of the Caspian Sea with the mean amplitude of 4.2 and 2.8 cm, respectively. A statistically significant long-term frequency (12.5-years period) is also found from altimetry and tide gauge observations. A phase lag, related to the inter-annual frequencies of the Volga River was detected from the point-wise time-series showing level propagation from the northwest to the southeast of the sea. The cross-correlation between the power spectrum of Volga and that of the northern-most, middle, and southern-most points within the Caspian Sea were respectively 0.63, 0.51 and 0.4 of zero-lag correlation, corroborating the influence of the Volga River. The result of PCA also shows that different parts of the Caspian Sea exhibit different amplitudes of level variations, indicating that the point-wise approach, when employing all available satellite measurements could be a suitable method for a preliminary monitoring of this inland water resource as it gives accurate local fluctuations.     

Characterization of ionospheric amplitude scintillations using wavelet entropy detrended GNSS data

The extensive monitoring networks of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ionospheric scintillation have been established to continuously log observation data. Further, the amplitude scintillation index and the phase scintillation index, which are derived from scintillation observations, are anticipated to accommodate the accuracy requirement of both the user level and the monitoring station level. However, raw scintillation observations essentially measure superposed waveform impairments of GNSS signals propagating through ionosphere and troposphere. It implies that fluctuations of raw scintillation observations are caused by multiple factors from the entire radio propagation environment. Hence, it is crucial to characterize ionospheric scintillations from GNSS observation data. And the characterization is implemented through extracting fluctuations of raw observations merely induced by ionospheric scintillations. Designed to address this problem by means of Fourier filtering detrending, the present work investigates the influence of varying detrending cutoff frequencies on wavelet statistical energy and wavelet entropy distributions of scintillation data. It consequently derives criteria on the optimum detrending cutoff frequency for three types of raw amplitude scintillation data, which are classified by their wavelet energy distributions. Results of the present work verify that detrending with specific optimum cutoff frequencies rather than the fixed and universally applicable one renders the validity and credibility of characterizing ionospheric scintillations as the part of GNSS observation fluctuations purely induced by ionosphere electron density irregularities whose scale sizes are comparable with or smaller than the Fresnel scale.     

一种基于GNSS数据的全球电离层不规则结构活动表征方法

针对如何利用GNSS(Global Navigation Satellite System)数据进行电离层扰动监测的问题,提出了一种基于GNSS数据表征全球电离层扰动的方法.利用大约400个GNSS地面站点的观测数据,计算总电子含量(Total Electron Content,TEC)变化率的标准差——ROTI(Ra...     

Coherent superposition of multi-GNSS wavelet analysis periodogram for sea-level retrieval in GNSS multipath reflectometry

The multipath signals of GNSS can act as a tide gauge via a technology called Global Navigation Satellite Systems multipath reflectometry (GNSS-MR), which is based on the relationship between multipath frequency and height to sea surface. In addition to the traditional frequency extraction method of Lomb–Scargle periodogram (LSP), wavelet analysis can be applied to extract instantaneous multipath frequencies of GPS L1, thus improving data utilization. However, because of the sensitivity of instantaneous frequency to noise and the introduction of more signals, multi-constellation retrievals exhibit many outliers and errors. The aim of this study is to apply wavelet analysis to multi-constellation multi-frequency signals and most importantly to find a method to avoid noise. We used coherent superposition to overlap the intra-track inter-signal instantaneous frequency spectrograms to enhance effective information and to weaken noise. This coherent superposition method can achieve intra-track inter-signal combination. The multi-GNSS data from two Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) stations were used. The results showed that the coherent superposition spectrogram has a clear energy concentration, and the frequencies calculated from it depict sea-level changes. To compare the method with the LSP method and to combine inter-track retrievals, a robust regression method was used to combine retrievals and to produce equally spaced retrieval series. The results show that the combined retrievals from the coherent superposition method have a slightly higher accuracy than those from the classical LSP method. Because this method can be used to retrieve sea-level data from instantaneous frequency, it increases data utilization and provides a way to obtain details of SNR arcs, which is a potential method to benefit GNSS-MR, especially for sites with narrow reflecting sensing zones in a small sea azimuth range.     

Near real-time PPP-based monitoring of the ionosphere using dual-frequency GPS/BDS/Galileo data

Ionosphere delay is very important to GNSS observations, since it is one of the main error sources which have to be mitigated even eliminated in order to determine reliable and precise positions. The ionosphere is a dispersive medium to radio signal, so the value of the group delay or phase advance of GNSS radio signal depends on the signal frequency. Ground-based GNSS stations have been used for ionosphere monitoring and modeling for a long time. In this paper we will introduce a novel approach suitable for single-receiver operation based on the precise point positioning (PPP) technique. One of the main characteristic is that only carrier-phase observations are used to avoid particular effects of pseudorange observations. The technique consists of introducing ionosphere ambiguity parameters obtained from PPP filter into the geometry-free combination of observations to estimate ionospheric delays. Observational data from stations that are capable of tracking the GPS/BDS/GALILEO from the International GNSS Service (IGS) Multi-GNSS Experiments (MGEX) network are processed. For the purpose of performance validation, ionospheric delays series derived from the novel approach are compared with the global ionospheric map (GIM) from Ionospheric Associate Analysis Centers (IAACs). The results are encouraging and offer potential solutions to the near real-time ionosphere monitoring.     

GNSS Satellite Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (SAIM) using inter-satellite measurements

Integrity is the ability of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to detect faults in measurements and provide timely warnings to users and operators when the navigation system cannot meet the defined performance standards, which is of great importance for safety of life critical applications. Compared with both Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) and ground based GNSS Integrity Channel (GIC) methods which are widely adopted nowadays, the Satellite Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (SAIM) method can be used to monitor orbit/ephemeris and clock errors, and has advantages in monitoring orbit and clock quality and providing instantaneous responses when faults happen.     

机载GNSS海洋反射信号的建模与仿真

由于全球导航卫星系统反射(GNSS-R)机载试验耗费大和重复性差,需研制GNSS-R信号模拟器,但没有相应的反射信号模型。提出了一种基于数据拟合的机载GNSS海洋反射信号建模方法。首先,对复杂的GNSS海面反射信号进行近似简化。然后利用ZV模型生成的时延相关功率曲线,通过最小二乘拟合和非线性拟合,建立了多条等时延间隔的海洋反射信号功率衰减模型,从而得到机载GNSS海洋反射信号的时延、功率、多普勒频率参数。最后,对多条反射信号的合路信号进行相关的仿真验证。验证的结果表明模拟的14条反射信号的相关功率曲线与ZV模型理论曲线的相关系数优于0.99,能够有效地用于GNSS海洋反射信号的生成。该方法可根据海面风场、浪高、波高等海面信息,模拟不同海况的海洋反射信号,为GNSS-R信号模拟器的研制奠定基础。     

Integrated drought monitoring index: A tool to monitor agricultural drought by using time-series datasets of space-based earth observation satellites

In this study, integrated drought monitoring index (IDMI) was proposed as a tool to assess and monitor the spatio-temporal dynamics of agricultural drought during the northeast monsoon season for the period from 2000 to 2016 in Tamil Nadu state, south-eastern part of Indian peninsula. The IDMI is characterized as the principal component of precipitation condition index (PCI), soil moisture condition index (SMCI), temperature condition index (TCI), and vegetation condition index (VCI) derived from time-series satellite observations of climate hazards group infra-red precipitation with stations (CHIRPS), European space agency climate change initiative (ESA-CCI) and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS). The study shows that in the year 2016, about 44.4 and 17.8% of Tamil Nadu state was under extreme and severe drought conditions, respectively. Sensitivity analysis of the study shows that PCI is the most influential parameter to IDMI, followed by VCI and TCI. The validation of IDMI with 3-month standardized precipitation index (SPI) by using Pearson correlation test shows a strong positive correlation between IDMI and 3-month SPI with correlation coefficient (r) value of 0.73 and 0.77 for the wet (2005) and dry year (2016), respectively. The study clearly demonstrates the potential of IDMI derived from time-series datasets of earth observation satellites as a tool in assessment and monitoring of spatio-temporal dynamics of agricultural drought. The proposed IDMI could be effectively used as a reliable tool to monitor agricultural drought and develop its mitigation strategies to minimise the adverse effects of drought on agriculture, water resources, and livelihoods of the people.     

The impact on tsunami detection from space using GNSS-reflectometry when combining GPS with GLONASS and Galileo

The devastating Sumatra tsunami in 2004 demonstrated the need for a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean. Such a system has been installed within the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) project. Tsunamis are a global phenomenon and for global observations satellites are predestined. Within the GITEWS project a feasibility study on a future tsunami detection system from space has therefore been carried out. The Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is an innovative way of using GNSS signals for remote sensing. It uses ocean reflected GNSS signals for sea surface altimetry. With a dedicated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites equipped with GNSS-R receivers, densely spaced sea surface height measurements could be established to detect tsunamis. Some general considerations on the geometry between LEO and GNSS are made in this simulation study. It exemplary analyzes the detection performance of a GNSS-R constellation at 900 km altitude and 60° inclination angle when applied to the Sumatra tsunami as it occurred in 2004. GPS is assumed as signal source and the combination with GLONASS and Galileo signals is investigated. It can be demonstrated, that the combination of GPS and Galileo is advantageous for constellations with few satellites while the combination with GLONASS is preferable for constellations with many satellites. If all three GNSS are combined, the best detection performance can be expected for all scenarios considered. In this case an 18 satellite constellation will detect the Sumatra tsunami within 17 min with certainty, while it takes 53 min if only GPS is considered.     

An improved sea level retrieval method using the differential evolution of GNSS SNR data

This paper presents an improved new method with differential evolution and the cubic spline approach is proposed to retrieve sea level height based on GNSS SNR observations from a single geodetic receiver. Considering the B-spline function is unstable at the beginning or end, and the feature that B-spline functions do not pass through nodes may introduce errors. Thus, the cubic spline is applied to the retrieval process and accounts for a continuous and smooth in sea level retrieval time series. Besides, the biases caused by tropospheric delay and dynamic sea level are considered and corrected. Testing data from two stations with different tidal range and the final solution agrees well with measurements from co-located tide gauges, reaching the RMSE of 3.67 cm at Friday Harbor, Washington, and 1.36 cm at Onsala, Sweden. Comparison of the nonlinear least squares, this method leads to a clear increase in precision of the sea level retrievals within 50%. Additionally, referring to the result of Purnell et al. (2020) and the IAG inter-comparison campaign, the results of this paper show more potential.