PBO H2O: Monitoring the Terrestrial Water Cycle with reflected GPS signals recorded by the Plate Boundary Observatory Network

Abstract:

Data from NSF’s EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), and similar GPS networks worldwide, can be used to monitor the terrestrial water cycle. GPS satellites transmit L-band microwave signals, which are strongly influenced by water at the surface of the Earth. GPS signals take two different paths: (1) the “direct” signal travels from the satellite to the antenna; (2) the “reflected” signal interacts with the Earth’s surface before travelling to the antenna. The direct signal is used by geophysicists to measure the position of the antenna. By analyzing these GPS data over multiple years, the motion of the site can be estimated. The effects of reflected signals are generally ignored by geophysicists because they are small. This is not happenstance, as significant effort has been made to design and deploy a GPS antenna that suppresses ground reflections.

Our group has developed a remote sensing technique to retrieve terrestrial water cycle variables from GPS data. We extract the water cycle products from signal strength data that measures the interference between the direct and reflected GPS signals. The sensing footprint is intermediate in scale between in situ observations and most remote sensing measurements. Snow depth, snow water equivalent (SWE), near surface soil moisture, and an index of vegetation water content are currently estimated from nearly 500 PBO sites. These PBO H₂O products are updated daily and are available online (http://xenon.colorado.edu/portal/index.php). Validation studies show that retrieved products are of sufficient quality to be used in a variety of applications. The root mean square error (RMSE) of GPS-based SWE is 2 cm, based on a comparison to snow survey data at nearly 20 GPS sites. The RMSE of near surface volumetric soil moisture is < 0.04 cm³ cm^-3, sufficient for validation of SMAP soil moisture and similar products.