Improving the Vertical Modeling of Tropospheric Delay

authored by: Jungang Wang, Kyriakos Balidakis, Florian Zus, Xiao Chang, Maorong Ge, Robert Heinkelmann, Harald Schuh
Abstract: Accurate tropospheric delays from Numerical Weather Models (NWM) are an important input to space geodetic techniques, especially for precise real-time Global Navigation Satellite Systems, which are indispensable to earthquake and tsunami early warning systems as well as weather forecasting. The NWM-based tropospheric delays are currently provided either site-specific with a limited spatial coverage, or on two-dimensional grids close to the Earth surface, which cannot be used for high altitudes. We introduce a new method of representing NWM-derived tropospheric zenith hydrostatic and wet delays. A large volume of NWM-derived data is parameterized with surface values and additional two or three coefficients for their vertical scaling to heights up to 14 km. A precision of 1–2 mm is achieved for reconstructing delays to the NWM-determined delays at any altitudes. The method can efficiently deliver NWM-derived tropospheric delays to a broader community of space geodetic techniques.
Type: Article
Journal: Geophysical research letters
Volume: 49
ISSN: 0094-8276
Publication date: 16.03.2022
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Geophysics, Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL096732 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{378f2960e69742a294009e9bddbb8c48,
title = "Improving the Vertical Modeling of Tropospheric Delay",
abstract = "Accurate tropospheric delays from Numerical Weather Models (NWM) are an important input to space geodetic techniques, especially for precise real-time Global Navigation Satellite Systems, which are indispensable to earthquake and tsunami early warning systems as well as weather forecasting. The NWM-based tropospheric delays are currently provided either site-specific with a limited spatial coverage, or on two-dimensional grids close to the Earth surface, which cannot be used for high altitudes. We introduce a new method of representing NWM-derived tropospheric zenith hydrostatic and wet delays. A large volume of NWM-derived data is parameterized with surface values and additional two or three coefficients for their vertical scaling to heights up to 14 km. A precision of 1–2 mm is achieved for reconstructing delays to the NWM-determined delays at any altitudes. The method can efficiently deliver NWM-derived tropospheric delays to a broader community of space geodetic techniques.",
author = "Jungang Wang and Kyriakos Balidakis and Florian Zus and Xiao Chang and Maorong Ge and Robert Heinkelmann and Harald Schuh",
note = "Funding information: The authors thank ECMWF for providing the ERA5 data set, the Editor and anonymous reviewers for the valuable comments. Jungang Wang is funded by the Helmholtz OCPC Program (grant no. ZD202121). Kyriakos Balidakis is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – Project-ID 434617780 – SFB 1464 (TerraQ). Xiao Chang is supported by the China Scholarship Council (grant no. 201703170248). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. The authors thank ECMWF for providing the ERA5 data set, the Editor and anonymous reviewers for the valuable comments. Jungang Wang is funded by the Helmholtz OCPC Program (grant no. ZD202121). Kyriakos Balidakis is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – Project?ID 434617780 – SFB 1464 (TerraQ). Xiao Chang is supported by the China Scholarship Council (grant no. 201703170248). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.",
year = "2022",
month = mar,
day = "16",
doi = "10.1029/2021GL096732",
language = "English",
volume = "49",
journal = "Geophysical research letters",
issn = "0094-8276",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "5",
}