Retrieval and Validation of Precipitable Water Vapor using GPS Datasets of Mobile Observation Vehicle in the Eastern Coast of Korea

Abstract:

The results from the global positioning system (GPS) measurements of mobile observation vehicle (MOVE) in the eastern coast of Korea have been compared with a fixed observation reference (REF) values from the fixed GPS sites to assess performance of precipitable water vapor (PWV) retrievals in a kinematic environment. MOVE-PWV retrievals have comparatively similar trends and reasonable agreement with REF-PWV with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 7.4 mm and R² of 0.61 indicating a statistical significance at the 1% level (p-value of 0.01). Especially PWV retrievals from the June cases showed better agreement (mean bias of 2.1 mm and RMSE of 3.8 mm) with the other cases. We further investigated the relationships of determinant factors of GPS signals with the PWV retrievals for the detailed error analysis. As a result, both multipath (MP) errors of L1 and L2 pseudo-range had the best indices (0.75~0.99 m) for the June cases. We also found that both position dilution of precision (PDOP) and signal to noise ratio (SNR) values in June cases during the 1st period (0000~0100 UTC) are better (lower and higher) than those in Non-June cases, which is strongly associated with good accuracy (RMSE of 3.5 mm) of PWV in June cases. These results clearly demonstrate those effects on PWV accuracy, that is, analytic results of the key factors (MP errors, PDOP, and SNR) that could affect GPS signals should be considered for obtaining more stable performance. Taking advantage of MOVE, we would provide water vapor information with high spatial and temporal resolutions in case that weather dramatically changes such as in Korean Peninsula.