GNSS Radio Occultation Applications for Weather Forecasting
GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite Systems Panagiotis Vergados
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
@ 2017 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged. Outline
Table of Contents Slide No. ------
• Introduction to GNSS radio occultation (GNSS RO)...... (3)
• Weather forecasting benefits...... (5)
• Hurricane intensity estimation...... (7)
• Other science applications...... (9)
• COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Mission...... (10)
• Summary...... (13)
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 2 What is GNSS Radio Occultation?
(GNSS)
Bending of the GPS signal in the atmosphere provides information on temperature, pressure, and humidity.
Unique: very high vertical resolution (~ 100 m), all- weather operation, global coverage, and high accuracy (T: ~0.5 K and q: ~0.1 g/kg).
Bending of the GPS signal in the ionosphere provides information on the free electron number density. LEO – Low Earth Orbiter (altitudes 350-1500 km)
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 3 GNSS Radio Occultation Timeline
Experiment on an operational satellite Operational Operational demonstration
Proof of concept
CASSIOPE
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 4 Weather Forecasting Benefits – 1
GOES-Rad MTSAT-Rad Relative forecast error reduction per observation system MET 9-Rad MET 7-Rad AMSU-B MHS AMSR-E SSMI GPS-RO IASI AIRS AMSU-A HIRS TEMP-mass DRIBU-mass AIREP-mass SYNOP-mass SCAT-w ind MODIS-AMV MET-AMV MTSAT-AMV GOES-AMV PILOT-w ind TEMP-w ind DRIBU-w ind AIREP-w ind SYNOP-w ind 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 Percent ReductionFE Cin % Forecast Error 24-hour forecast
Cardinali, C., and S. Healy (2014), Impact of GPS radio occultation measurements in the ECMWF system using adjoint-based diagnostics, Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., 140(684), 2315–2320, doi:10.1002/qj.2300.
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 5 Weather Forecasting Benefits – 2
Stratosphere, Summer Hemisphere
Standard deviation
Temperature error – weather model
Started assimilating COSMIC data in 2006
From S. Healy, ECMWF
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 6 Weather Forecasting Benefits – 3
The impact of using RO observations on forecasts of
Hurricane Ernesto’s genesis (2006)
Central Sea Level (hPa) Pressure Level Sea Central Day of August 2006 Ensemble mean of 48-h forecasts of Ernesto’s central sea level pressure (hPa) initialized from the analyses at 0000 UTC 25 Aug 2006 (Liu et al., 2012; Monthly Weather Review, doi:10.1175/MWR-D-11-00024.1)
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 7 Hurricane Intensity Estimation
Remote sensing of hurricane intensity could greatly improve quantity of timely data
GNSS RO-based Method of Estimating Hurricane Intensity
First estimates of hurricane intensities (maximum wind speed) from GPS radio occultations (GPSRO) and the Wong and Emanuel [2007] hurricane model.
GPSRO-derived hurricane intensities show 0.9 linear correlation with respect to NHC intensities with a small bias. GPSRO shows great potential in augmenting current hurricane datasets, with possible applications to the initial vortex parameterization and intensity forecasting.
Vergados P., Z. Luo, K. Emanuel, and A. J. Mannucci (2014), Observation tests of hurricane intensity estimations using GPS radio occultations, J. Geophys. Res. – Atmospheres., 13 p., doi:10.1002/2013JD020934
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 8 Science Applications
1. Climate monitoring 2. Characterizing the
planetary boundary layer
Temperature (K) Temperature Pressure level (hPa) level Pressure
01/96 01/97 01/98 01/99 01/00 01/01 01/02 01/03 01/04 01/05 01/06 01/07 01/08 01/09 01/10 Time, months 4. Electron density irregularities 3. Expansion of the tropical belt Auroral
(64–80o)
Wavelength, km Wavelength,
Polar
(> 80o) Wavelength, km Wavelength,
Altitude, km
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 9 COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Mission
COSMIC-2A launch, 6 satellites: ~March 2018
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 10 COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Mission
COSMIC-2 observa on density
A high-inclina on launch is necessary to obtain global and uniform distribu on of RO profiles and to improve weather forecast skill globally
Spa al distribu on of the COSMIC-2A and COSMIC-2B observa ons for (a) ±3 hours assimila on me window 6
L. Cucurull, NOAA, 2017
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 11 Future Research Satellites: RO+Reflections?
Clara Chew, JPL
• CHAMP and SAC-C had nadir antennas and observed some reflections from frozen areas • GNOS (RO) has a reflections experiment onboard • CYGNSS (NASA mission) is first GNSS-Reflections constellation
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 12 Summary
• RO observations have improved weather forecasting, have demonstrated great potential in extreme weather research, and have provided valuable information in space weather research.
• Given the success of previous RO missions, future and follow-on missions will track additional signals of opportunity (beyond the GPS signals).
• Synergistic applications between GNSS-RO and GNSS reflections appear to be a viable path forward to begin exploring new science applications.
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 13 jpl.nasa.gov
November 15, 2017 JPL/Caltech PV/JPLAJM/JPL 14