[G06-1] Troposphere monitoring I

[G06-1-01] GNSS Remote Sensing at GFZ: Overview and Recent Results

^○Jens Wickert^{1, 2}, Fadwa AlShawaf¹, Christina Arras¹, Milad Asgarimehr¹, Galina Dick¹, Stefan Heise¹, Kristine Larson³, XingXing Li¹, Cuixian Lu¹, Markus Ramatschi¹, Maximilian Semmling¹, Torsten Schmidt¹, Tzvetan Simeonov^1,2, Sibylle Vey¹, Florian Zus¹, Harald Schuh^1,2 (1.German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Germany, 2.Technische Universitaet Berlin, Germany, 3.University of Colorada, Boulder, U.S.)

invited

GNSS atmospheric remote sensing was successfully established during the last two decades and evolved into a major application for high precision GNSS. Globally distributed vertical profiles of refractivity, temperature and water vapour are derived from satellite based GNSS data (Radio Occultation, RO). Ground based measurements, provided by GNSS networks, allow for the derivation of vertically (IWV) or along the line-of-sight integrated water vapour (SWV). Another important GNSS remote sensing technique, the exploitation of Earth reflected signals (GNSS Reflectometry, GNSS-R) exhibits a huge potential for Earth Observation.
The status of the GNSS-RO experiments aboard the satellites GRACE-A, TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X is reviewed. Examples of GNSS RO applications are given, as, e.g. climatological investigations of the global vertical temperature structure or the detection of ionospheric irregularities in the E-region. We also focus on ground based activities for GNSS water vapour monitoring. Observations of a global and regionally densified German network, with about 600 stations in total, are processed in near-real time to operationally provide IWV data. These data are assimilated into atmospheric models by several European weather centers. Current research activities are focused on the generation and meteorological application of GNSS based slant data, on real-time and multi-GNSS meteorology. In addition, climatological investigations are described to analyse long-term trends of the atmospheric water vapour over Germany but also as part of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) of the WMO (World Meteorological Organization).
Multipath data from standard GNSS receivers are used to derive information on soil moisture, vegetation and snow properties. We introduce selected research examples. We also review results from GNSS receivers aboard flight and ship platforms using the GNSS-R phase altimetry technique.