Abstract
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) tomography has proved its potential for sensing the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of atmospheric water vapor. Although the standard tomography model has improved, the geometry defect of GNSS acquisition remains a key problem and thus becomes the focus of this research. Thanks to the availability of high-resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) precipitable water vapor (PWV) maps, the integration of GNSS and MODIS measurements for tropospheric tomography system is introduced and discussed to address this problem. A methodology based on the node tomography model is developed to exploit the MODIS signals, which overcomes the disadvantage of the standard voxel model in combining the MODIS observations. Three experimental schemes based on MODIS data and simultaneous GNSS observations over the Xuzhou area are implemented to validate the proposed approach. The results show that the mean number of newly crossed voxels (i.e., punctured only by the MODIS signals) increases from 2 in the top layer to 24 in the first layer. Consequently, the average number of total crossed voxels is increased from 272 to 447, which highlights the contribution of the MODIS observations to pass through the empty voxels. Besides, the mean number of tomographic observation equations is enhanced by 35.71% when the MODIS signals are combined. Two-dimensional (2D) profiles of water vapor from radiosonde and 3D distributions of it from ERA5 data are considered to validate the proposed method. It is noted that when using the proposed approach, the mean root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the 2D tomographic profiles is decreased by a value of about 1.06 g/m3 and the overall accuracy of the 3D water vapor distribution is improved by 30.40%. Both the 2D and 3D validations demonstrate the satisfactory performance of the new integrated method to optimize the tomographic water vapor field.
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MODIS data used for this study can be downloaded from the Web site (https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/search/). Radiosonde data of station 58,027 can be downloaded from the Web site (http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html).
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Acknowledgements
This study is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 41774026, 41904013, 41974039) and the Natural Science Basic Research Project of Shaanxi (grant number 2020JQ-738)
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Zhang, W., Zhang, S., Zheng, N. et al. A new integrated method of GNSS and MODIS measurements for tropospheric water vapor tomography. GPS Solut 25, 79 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01114-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01114-1