Use of atmospheric angular momentum forecasts for UT1 predictions: analyses over CONT08

Real-time orbit determination and interplanetary navigation require accurate predictions of the orientation of the Earth in the celestial reference frame and in particular that for Universal Time UT1. Much of the UT1 variations over periods ranging from hours to a couple of years are due to the global atmospheric circulation. Therefore, the axial atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) forecast series may be used as a proxy index to predict UT1. Our approach taking advantage of this fact is based on an adaptive procedure. It involves incorporating integrations of AAM estimates into UT1 series. The procedure runs on a routine basis using AAM forecasts that are based on the two meteorological series, from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the Japan Meteorological Agency. It is pertinent to test the prediction method for the period that includes the special CONT08 campaign over which we expect a significant improvement in UT1 accuracy. The studies we carried out were aimed both to compare atmospheric forecasts and analyses, as well as to compare the skills of the UT1 forecasts based on the method with atmospheric forecasts and that using current statistical processes, as applied to the C04 Earth orientation parameters series derived by the International Earth rotation and Reference Systems service (IERS). Here we neglect the oceanic sub-diurnal and diurnal variations, as these signals are expected to be smaller than the UT1-equivalent of 100 μs, when averaged over a few days. The prediction performances for a 2-day forecast are similar, but at a forecast horizon of a week, the AAM-based forecast is roughly twice as skillful as the statistically based one.     

Atmospheric Angular Momentum Time-Series: Characterization of their Internal Noise and Creation of a Combined Series

The atmosphere induces variations in Earth rotation. These effects are classically computed using the “angular momentum approach”. In this method, the variations in Earth rotation are estimated from the variations in the atmospheric angular momentum (AAM). Several AAM time-series are available from different meteorological centers. However, the estimation of atmospheric effects on Earth rotation differs when using one atmospheric model or the other. The purpose of this work is to build an objective criterion that justifies the use of one series in particular. Because the atmosphere is not the only cause of Earth rotation variations, this criterion cannot rely only on a comparison of AAM series with geodetic data. Instead, we determine the quality of each series by making an estimation of their noise level, using a generalized formulation of the “three-cornered hat method”. We show the existence of a link between the noise of the AAM series and their correlation with geodetic data: a noisy series is usually less correlated with Earth orientation data. As the quality of the series varies in time, we construct a combined AAM series, using time-dependent weights chosen so that the noise level of the combined series is minimal. To determine the influence of a minimal noise level on the correlation with geodetic data, we compute the correlation between the combined series and Earth orientation data. We note that the combined series is always amongst the best correlated series, which confirms the link established before. The quality criterion, while totally independent of Earth orientation observations, appears to be physically convincing when atmospheric and geodetic data are compared     

Seasonal length-of-day changes and atmospheric angular momentum oscillations in their temporal variability

Recently, effective atmospheric-angular-momentum (AAM) functions as calculated from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) (formerly National Meteorological Center, NMC) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Reanalyses have become available for the years 1958 to 1998. Concerning the wind terms, the top level in the atmosphere used here is 10 hPa. Compared with earlier NMC model versions, which incorporate wind fields up to 100 hPa since 1976 and up to 50 hPa since 1981, the reanalyses have produced improved data series over a longer period than before. The axial AAM component χ₃ is associated with changes in length of day (LOD). Motivated by better quality and continuity of the series AAM (NCEP) Reanalysis, the problem of the seasonal imbalances in the solid Earth–atmosphere axial angular momentum budget is re-examined. To assess better the estimates of the annual and semiannual oscillations in LOD and AAM and of the residual oscillations derived as difference series between LOD and AAM, the series of LOD data from three analysis centers [International Earth Rotation Service (IERS), GeoForschungZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena (JPL)] and of AAM data in terms of χ₃(W), χ₃(P) and χ₃(P+IB) from four meteorological centers [NCEP, Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the UK Meteorological Office (UKMO)] are used in this study. The main analysis steps were removing gaps, filtering out the seasonal oscillations, calculating optimal estimates of the parameters of the oscillations and calculating the difference series between the LOD and AAM systems as well as the residuals in the axial angular momentum budget in the LOD–AAM systems. The results derived as difference series between the different LOD, AAM and LOD–AAM systems show to what extent the variations reflect systematic differences and significant signals, respectively, which is important for future activities in this field. Received: 2 February 1999 / Accepted: 30 November 1999     

Multi-technique comparison of troposphere zenith delays and gradients during CONT08

CONT08 was a 15 days campaign of continuous Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) sessions during the second half of August 2008 carried out by the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS). In this study, VLBI estimates of troposphere zenith total delays (ZTD) and gradients during CONT08 were compared with those derived from observations with the Global Positioning System (GPS), Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS), and water vapor radiometers (WVR) co-located with the VLBI radio telescopes. Similar geophysical models were used for the analysis of the space geodetic data, whereas the parameterization for the least-squares adjustment of the space geodetic techniques was optimized for each technique. In addition to space geodetic techniques and WVR, ZTD and gradients from numerical weather models (NWM) were used from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) (all sites), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and Cloud Resolving Storm Simulator (CReSS) (Tsukuba), and the High Resolution Limited Area Model (HIRLAM) (European sites). Biases, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients were computed between the troposphere estimates of the various techniques for all eleven CONT08 co-located sites. ZTD from space geodetic techniques generally agree at the sub-centimetre level during CONT08, and??as expected??the best agreement is found for intra-technique comparisons: between the Vienna VLBI Software and the combined IVS solutions as well as between the Center for Orbit Determination (CODE) solution and an IGS PPP time series; both intra-technique comparisons are with standard deviations of about 3?C6?mm. The best inter space geodetic technique agreement of ZTD during CONT08 is found between the combined IVS and the IGS solutions with a mean standard deviation of about 6?mm over all sites, whereas the agreement with numerical weather models is between 6 and 20?mm. The standard deviations are generally larger at low latitude sites because of higher humidity, and the latter is also the reason why the standard deviations are larger at northern hemisphere stations during CONT08 in comparison to CONT02 which was observed in October 2002. The assessment of the troposphere gradients from the different techniques is not as clear because of different time intervals, different estimation properties, or different observables. However, the best inter-technique agreement is found between the IVS combined gradients and the GPS solutions with standard deviations between 0.2 and 0.7?mm.     

Polar motion of the triaxial nonrigid Earth and atmospheric excitation

The present study aims to extend the traditional rotation theory of the rotational-symmetric Earth to the triaxial Earth.We re-formulate the Liouville equations and their general solutions for the triaxial nonrigid Earth and find that the traditional theory intro-duces some theoretical errors in modeling the excitation functions.Furthermore,we apply that theory to the atmospheric excitation and find that theoretical errors should not be neglected given the present measurement accuracy.Thus we conclude that the traditional the-ory of the rotation of the rotational-symmetric Earth should be revised and upgraded to include the effects of the Earth’s triaxiality.     

Troposphere delays from space geodetic techniques, water vapor radiometers, and numerical weather models over a series of continuous VLBI campaigns

Continuous, very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) campaigns over 2 weeks have been carried out repeatedly, i.e., CONT02 in October 2002, CONT05 in September 2005, CONT08 in August 2008, and CONT11 in September 2011, to demonstrate the highest accuracy the current VLBI was capable at that time. In this study, we have compared zenith total delays (ZTD) and troposphere gradients as consistently estimated from the observations of VLBI, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), and Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) at VLBI sites participating in the CONT campaigns. We analyzed the CONT campaigns using the state-of-the-art software following common processing strategies as closely as possible. In parallel, ZTD and gradients were derived from numerical weather models, i.e., from the global European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analysis fields, the High Resolution Limited Area Model (European sites), the Japan Meteorological Agency-Operational Meso-Analysis Field (MANAL, over Japan), and the Cloud Resolving Storm Simulator (Tsukuba, Japan). Finally, zenith wet delays were estimated from the observations of water vapor radiometers (WVR) at sites where the WVR observables are available during the CONT sessions. The best ZTD agreement, interpreted as the smallest standard deviation, was found between GNSS and VLBI techniques to be about 5–6 mm at most of the co-located sites and CONT campaigns. We did not detect any significant improvement in the ZTD agreement between various techniques over time, except for DORIS and MANAL. On the other hand, the agreement and thus the accuracy of the troposphere parameters mainly depend on the amount of humidity in the atmosphere.     

Contribution of new AAM data source to δLOD excitation

Data sets of the changes of the length of day (ΔLOD) measured by space geodetic techniques and of the atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) derived from global meteorological data by the National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) are used to reanalyze and study the excitations of ΔLOD, and to examine and compare the contribution of each AAM series to ΔLOD. The main results are as follows. 1. The AAM reanalyzed with the assimilated global meteorological data by NCEP/NCAR are more accurate and have lower noise than the original AAM derived by NMC. The NCEP/NCAR-based AAM is more consistent with the changes of the length-of-day series. 2. The NCEP reanalysed AAM data may better explain the non-tidal LOD variations on intraseasonal to interannual time scales, especially on the quasi-biennial time scale. The atmosphere cannot, however, explain all LOD variations; other excitation sources are possible. 3. The effects of atmosphere on the estimated values of tides for ΔLOD components up to a month are weak. The preliminary results of the annual and semiannual tides can be estimated after removing the effects of atmosphere from ΔLOD. Received: 27 May 1998 / Accepted: 22 March 1999     

EOP and scale from continuous VLBI observing: CONT campaigns to future VGOS networks

Continuous (CONT) VLBI campaigns have been carried out about every 3 years since 2002. The basic idea of these campaigns is to acquire state-of-the-art VLBI data over a continuous time period of about 2 weeks to demonstrate the highest accuracy of which the current VLBI system is capable. In addition, these campaigns support scientific studies such as investigations of high-resolution Earth rotation, reference frame stability, and daily to sub-daily site motions. The size of the CONT networks and the observing data rate have increased steadily since 1994. Performance of these networks based on reference frame scale precision and polar motion/LOD comparison with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) earth orientation parameters (EOP) has been substantially better than the weekly operational R1 and R4 series. The precisions of CONT EOP and scale have improved by more than a factor of two since 2002. Polar motion precision based on the WRMS difference between VLBI and GNSS for the most recent CONT campaigns is at the 30 \(\upmu \)as level, which is comparable to that of GNSS. The CONT campaigns are a natural precursor to the planned future VLBI observing networks, which are expected to observe continuously. We compare the performance of the most recent CONT campaigns in 2011 and 2014 with the expected performance of the future VLBI global observing system network using simulations. These simulations indicate that the expected future precision of scale and EOP will be at least 3 times better than the current CONT precision.     

Atmospheric, oceanic and hydrological contributions to seasonal variations in length of day

 The annual and semiannual residuals derived in the axial angular momentum budget of the solid Earth–atmosphere system reflect significant signals. They must be caused by further excitation sources. Since, in particular, the contribution for the wind term from the atmospheric layer between the 10 and 0.3 hPa levels to the seasonal variations in length of day (LOD) is still missing, it is necessary to extend the top level into the upper stratosphere up to 0.3 hPa. Under the conservation of the total angular momentum of the entire Earth, variations in the oceanic angular momentum (OAM) and the hydrological angular momentum (HAM) are further significant excitation sources at seasonal time scales. Focusing on other contributions to the Earth's axial angular momentum budget, the following data are used in this study: axial atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) data derived for the 10–0.3 hPa layer from 1991 to 1997 for computing the missing wind effects; axial OAM functions as generated by oceanic general circulation models (GCMs), namely for the ECHAM3 and the MICOM models, available from 1975 to 1994 and from 1992 to 1994, respectively, for computing the oceanic contributions to LOD changes, and, concerning the HAM variations, the seasonal estimates of the hydrological contribution as derived by Chao and O'Connor [(1988) Geophys J 94: 263–270]. Using vector representation, it is shown that the vectors achieve a close balance in the global axial angular momentum budget within the estimated uncertainties of the momentum quantities on seasonal time scales. Received: 6 April 2000 / Accepted: 13 December 2000     

Comparisons of atmospheric mass variations derived from ECMWF reanalysis and operational fields,over 2003–2011

There are two spurious jumps in the atmospheric part of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Atmosphere and Ocean De-aliasing level 1B (GRACE-AOD1B) products, which occurred in January-February of the years 2006 and 2010, as a result of the vertical level and horizontal resolution changes in the ECMWFop (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts operational analysis). These jumps cause a systematic error in the estimation of mass changes from GRACE time-variable level 2 products, since GRACE-AOD1B mass variations are removed during the computation of GRACE level 2. In this short note, the potential impact of using an improved set of 6-hourly atmospheric de-aliasing products on the computations of linear trends as well as the amplitude of annual and semi-annual mass changes from GRACE is assessed. These improvements result from 1) employing a modified 3D integration approach (ITG3D), and 2) using long-term consistent atmospheric fields from the ECMWF reanalysis (ERA-Interim). The monthly averages of the new ITG3D-ERA-Interim de-aliasing products are then compared to the atmospheric part of GRACE-AOD1B, covering January 2003 to December 2010. These comparisons include the 33 world largest river basins along with Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. The results indicate a considerable difference in total atmospheric mass derived from the two products over some of the mentioned regions. We suggest that future GRACE studies consider these through updating uncertainty budgets or by applying corrections to estimated trends and amplitudes/phases.     

Wavelet analysis of interannual LOD, AAM, and ENSO: 1997–98 El Niño and 1998–99 La Niña signals

 On the basis of the data series of the length of day (LOD), the atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) for January 1970–June 1999, the relationship among Interannual LOD, AAM, and the EL Ni?o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is analyzed by the wavelet transform method. The results suggest that they have similar time-varying spectral structures. The signals of 1997–98 El Ni?o and 1998–99 La Ni?a events can be detected from the LOD or AAM data. Received: 25 January 2000 / Accepted: 9 January 2001     

Atmospheric tides and rotation of the Earth

The six-hourly values of the atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) functions computed by the U.S. National Meteorological Center (NMC) were used to estimate the effects of the atmospheric tides on the Earth's rotation. Variations of the equatorial components ₁ and ₂ of the AAM have periods close to gravitational tidesP ₁ andK ₁.The amplitudes of the detected variations in ₁ and ₂ functions have been found to be much larger than the theoretical ones, the reason of this amplification remains unexplained. According to theoretical formulations, these waves can be expressed only as retrograde motions. Because of frame effects, there is a correspondance between diurnal retrograde polar motion and precession-nutations and the atmospheric effect on polar motion cannot be detected from observations.The second part of this paper deals the effects of atmospheric tides in Earth rotation. High-frequency UT1 variations have been derived from VLBI and GPS techniques during the SEARCH'92 campaign (Study ofEarth-AtmosphereRapidCHanges) (Dickey et al. 1994). They have been compared to values derived by Ray et al. (1994) from global ocean tide model. The results obtained in the present paper show the existence of variations of thermal origin with an amplitude of about 1µs in Universal Time UT1. The agreement between observed and theoretical values is better when the determined thermal atmospheric tides are taken into account.Oceanic tidal signal explains a large part (60% of the signal variance) of the diurnal and sub-diurnal variations. Our results show that only a small part of the residuals (5%) accounts for the atmospheric tidal effects. The residual signal remains unexplained; it might be due to mismodelization of oceanic or atmospheric tides or effect of other geophysical phenomena.     

A synthetic Earth for use in geodesy

 A synthetic Earth and its gravity field that can be represented at different resolutions for testing and comparing existing and new methods used for global gravity-field determination are created. Both the boundary and boundary values of the gravity potential can be generated. The approach chosen also allows observables to be generated at aircraft flight height or at satellite altitude. The generation of the synthetic Earth shape (SES) and gravity-field quantities is based upon spherical harmonic expansions of the isostatically compensated equivalent rock topography and the EGM96 global geopotential model. Spherical harmonic models are developed for both the synthetic Earth topography (SET) and the synthetic Earth potential (SEP) up to degree and order 2160 corresponding to a 5′×5′ resolution. Various sets of SET, SES and SEP with boundary geometry and boundary values at different resolutions can be generated using low-pass filters applied to the expansions. The representation is achieved in point sets based upon refined triangulation of a octahedral geometry projected onto the chosen reference ellipsoid. The filter cut-offs relate to the sampling pattern in order to avoid aliasing effects. Examples of the SET and its gravity field are shown for a resolution with a Nyquist sampling rate of 8.27 degrees. Received: 6 August 1999 / Accepted: 26 April 2000     

Multi-technique comparison of tropospheric zenith delays derived during the CONT02 campaign

In October 2002, 15 continuous days of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data were observed in the Continuous VLBI 2002 (CONT02) campaign. All eight radio telescopes involved in CONT02 were co-located with at least one other space-geodetic technique, and three of them also with a Water Vapor Radiometer (WVR). The goal of this paper is to compare the tropospheric zenith delays observed during CONT02 by VLBI, Global Positioning System (GPS), Doppler Orbitography Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and WVR and to compare them also with operational pressure level data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). We show that the tropospheric zenith delays from VLBI and GPS are in good agreement at the 3–7 mm level. However, while only small biases can be found for most of the stations, at Kokee Park (Hawaii, USA) and Westford (Massachusetts, USA) the zenith delays derived by GPS are larger by more than 5 mm than those from VLBI. At three of the four DORIS stations, there is also a fairly good agreement with GPS and VLBI (about 10 mm), but at Kokee Park the agreement is only at about 30 mm standard deviation, probably due to the much older installation and type of DORIS equipment. This comparison also allows testing of different DORIS analysis strategies with respect to their real impact on the precision of the derived tropospheric parameters. Ground truth information about the zenith delays can also be obtained from the ECMWF numerical weather model and at three sites using WVR measurements, allowing for comparisons with results from the space-geodetic techniques. While there is a good agreement (with some problems mentioned above about DORIS) among the space-geodetic techniques, the comparison with WVR and ECMWF is at a lower accuracy level. The complete CONT02 data set is sufficient to derive a good estimate of the actual precision and accuracy of each geodetic technique for applications in meteorology.     

Mitigation of atmospheric perturbations and solid Earth movements in a TerraSAR-X time-series

The TerraSAR-X (TSX) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) marks the recent emergence of a new generation of spaceborne radar sensors that can for the first time lay claim to localization accuracies in the sub-meter range. The TSX platform’s extremely high orbital stability and the sensor’s hardware timing accuracy combine to enable direct measurements of atmospheric refraction and solid Earth movements. By modeling these effects for individual TSX acquisitions, absolute pixel geolocation accuracy on the order of several centimeters can be achieved without need for even a single tiepoint. A 16-month time series of images was obtained over a fixed test site, making it possible to validate both an atmospheric refraction and a solid Earth tide model, while at the same time establishing the instrument’s long-term stability. These related goals were achieved by placing trihedral corner reflectors (CRs) at the test site and estimating their phase centers with centimeter-level accuracy using differential GPS (DGPS). Oriented in pairs toward a given satellite track, the CRs could be seen as bright “points” in the images, providing a geometric reference set. SAR images from the high-resolution spotlight (HS) mode were obtained in alternating ascending and descending orbit configurations. The highest-resolution products were selected for their small sample dimensions, as positions can be more precisely determined. Based on the delivered product annotations, the CR image positions were predicted, and these predictions were compared with their measured image positions both before and after compensation for atmospheric refraction and systematic solid Earth deviations. It was possible to show that when the atmospheric distortion and Earth tides are taken into account, the TSX HS products have geolocation accuracies far exceeding the specified requirements. Furthermore, this accuracy was maintained for the duration of the 16-month test period. It could be demonstrated that with a correctly calibrated sensor, and after accounting for atmospheric and tidal effects, tiepoint-free geolocation is possible with TSX with an absolute product accuracy of about 5 cm.     

Ambiguity resolution in precise point positioning with hourly data

Precise point positioning (PPP) has become a powerful tool for the scientific analysis of Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements. Until recently, ambiguity resolution at a single station in PPP has been considered difficult, due to the receiver- and satellite-dependent uncalibrated hardware delays (UHD). However, recent studies show that if these UHD can be determined accurately in advance within a network of stations, then ambiguity resolution at a single station becomes possible. In this study, the method proposed by Ge et al. J Geod 82(7):389–399, 2007 is adopted with a refinement in which only one single-difference narrow-lane UHD between a pair of satellites is determined within each full pass over a regional network. This study uses the EUREF (European Reference Frame) Permanent Network (EPN) to determine the UHD from Day 245 to 251 in 2007. Then 12 International GNSS Service stations inside the EPN and 15 outside the EPN are used to conduct ambiguity resolution in hourly PPP. It is found that the mean positioning accuracy in all hourly solutions for the stations inside the EPN is improved from (3.8, 1.5, 2.8) centimeters to (0.5, 0.5, 1.4) centimeters for the East, North and Up components, respectively. For the stations outside the EPN, some of which are over 2,000 km away from the nearest EPN stations, the mean positioning accuracy in the East, North and Up directions still achieves (0.6, 0.6, 2.0) centimeters, respectively, when the EPN-based UHD are applied to these stations. These results demonstrate that ambiguity resolution at a single station can significantly improve the positioning accuracy in hourly PPP. Particularly, UHD can be even applied to a station which is up to thousands of kilometers from the UHD-determination network, potentially showing a great advantage over current network-based GPS augmentation systems. Therefore, it is feasible and beneficial for the operators of GPS regional networks and providers of PPP-based online services to provide these UHD estimates as an additional product.     

Quality assessment of COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 GPS radio occultation data derived from single- and double-difference atmospheric excess phase processing

This study evaluates the quality of GPS radio occultation (RO) atmospheric excess phase data derived with single- and double-difference processing algorithms. A spectral analysis of 1 s GPS clock estimates indicates that a sampling interval of 1 s is necessary to adequately remove the GPS clock error with single-difference processing. One week (May 2–8, 2009) of COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 data are analyzed in a post-processed mode with four different processing strategies: (1) double-differencing with 1 s GPS ground data, (2) single-differencing with 30 s GPS clock estimates (standard COSMIC Data Analysis and Archival Center product), (3) single-differencing with 5 s GPS clocks, and (4) single-differencing with 1 s GPS clocks. Analyses of a common set of 5,596 RO profiles show that the neutral atmospheric bending angles and refractivities derived from single-difference processing with 1 s GPS clocks are the highest quality. The random noise of neutral atmospheric bending angles between 60 and 80 km heights is about 1.50e−6 rad for the single-difference cases and 1.74e−6 rad for double-differencing. An analysis of pairs of collocated soundings also shows that bending angles derived from single-differencing with 1 s GPS clocks are more consistent than with the other processing strategies. Additionally, the standard deviation of the differences between RO and high-resolution European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) refractivity profiles at 30 km height is 0.60% for single-differencing with 1 and 5 s GPS clocks, 0.68% for single-differencing with 30 s clocks, and 0.66% for double-differencing. A GPS clock-sampling interval of 1 s or less is required for single- and zero-difference processing to achieve the highest quality excess atmospheric phase data for RO applications.     

Climate applications of a global, 2-hourly atmospheric precipitable water dataset derived from IGS tropospheric products

A global, 2-hourly atmospheric precipitable water (PW) dataset is produced from ground-based GPS measurements of zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) using the International Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Service (IGS) tropospheric products (~80–370 stations, 1997–2006) and US SuomiNet product (169 stations, 2003–2006). The climate applications of the GPS PW dataset are highlighted in this study. Firstly, the GPS PW dataset is used as a reference to validate radiosonde and atmospheric reanalysis data. Three types of systematic errors in global radiosonde PW data are quantified based on comparisons with the GPS PW data, including measurement biases for each of the fourteen radiosonde types along with their characteristics, long-term temporal inhomogeneity and diurnal sampling errors of once and twice daily radiosonde data. The comparisons between the GPS PW data and three reanalysis products, namely the NCEP-NCAR (NNR), ECMWF 40-year (ERA-40) and Japanese reanalyses (JRA), show that the elevation difference between the reanalysis grid box and the GPS station is the primary cause of the PW difference. Secondly, the PW diurnal variations are documented using the 2-hourly GPS PW dataset. The PW diurnal cycle has an annual-mean, peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.66, 0.53 and 1.11 mm for the globe, Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Hemisphere, respectively, with the time of the peak ranging from noon to late evening depending on the season and region. Preliminary analyses suggest that the PW diurnal cycle in Europe is poorly represented in the NNR and JRA products. Several recommendations are made for future improvements of IGS products for climate applications.     

Troposphere gradients from the ECMWF in VLBI analysis

Modeling path delays in the neutral atmosphere for the analysis of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations has been improved significantly in recent years by the use of elevation-dependent mapping functions based on data from numerical weather models. In this paper, we present a fast way of extracting both, hydrostatic and wet, linear horizontal gradients for the troposphere from data of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model, as it is realized at the Vienna University of Technology on a routine basis for all stations of the International GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) Service (IGS) and International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) stations. This approach only uses information about the refractivity gradients at the site vertical, but no information from the line-of-sight. VLBI analysis of the CONT02 and CONT05 campaigns, as well as all IVS-R1 and IVS-R4 sessions in the first half of 2006, shows that fixing these a priori gradients improves the repeatability for 74% (40 out of 54) of the VLBI baseline lengths compared to fixing zero or constant a priori gradients, and improves the repeatability for the majority of baselines compared to estimating 24-h offsets for the gradients. Only if 6-h offsets are estimated, the baseline length repeatabilities significantly improve, no matter which a priori gradients are used.