Seth I. Gutman

The ARM program's water vapor intensive observation periods - Overview, initial accomplishments, and future challenges

A series of water vapor intensive observation periods (WVIOPs) were conducted at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site in Oklahoma between 1996 and 2000. The goals of these WVIOPs are to characterize the accuracy of the operational water vapor observations and to develop techniques to improve the accuracy of these measurements. The initial focus of these experiments was on the lower atmosphere, for which the goal is an absolute accuracy of better than 2% in total column water vapor, corresponding to ~1 W m−2 of infrared radiation at the surface. To complement the operational water vapor instruments during the WVIOPs, additional instrumentation including a scanning Raman lidar, microwave radiometers, chilled-mirror hygrometers, a differential absorption lidar, and ground-based solar radiometers were deployed at the ARM site. The unique datasets from the 1996, 1997, and 1999 experiments have led to many results, including the discovery and characterization of a large (> 25%) sonde-to-sonde variab...

Developing an Operational, Surface-Based, GPS, Water Vapor Observing System for NOAA: Network Design and Results

Abstract The need for a reliable, low-cost observing system to measure water vapor in the atmosphere is incontrovertible. Experiments have shown the potential for using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to measure total precipitable water vapor accurately at different locations and times of year and under all weather conditions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations’s (NOAA) Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) and Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL), in collaboration with the University NAVSTAR Consortium, University of Hawaii, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) Laboratory, are addressing this need by developing a ground-based water vapor observing system based on the measurement of GPS signal delays caused by water vapor in the atmosphere. The NOAA GPS Integrated Precipitable Water Vapor (NOAA GPS–IPW) network currently has 35 continuously operating stations and is expected to expand into a 200-station demonstration network by 2004. T...

GPS meteorology: Reducing systematic errors in geodetic estimates for zenith delay

Differences between long term precipitable water (PW) time series derived from radiosondes, microwave water vapor radiometers, and GPS stations reveal offsets that are often as much as 1–2 mm PW. All three techniques are thought to suffer from systematic errors of order 1 mm PW. Standard GPS processing algorithms are known to be sensitive to the choice of elevation cutoff angle at this level. We present a processing protocol that is shown to reduce elevation angle dependence in geodetic estimates of zenith delay and, hence, reduce the systematic errors in derived precipitable water. This protocol includes use of the Niell zenith delay mapping functions and International GPS Service phase center models.

The Role of Ground-Based GPS Meteorological Observations in Numerical Weather Prediction

For lack of sufficient observations, the definition of atmospheric moisture fields (including water vapor and clouds) remains a difficult problem whose solution is essential for improved weather forecasts. Moisture fields are under-observed in time and space, primarily because the distribution of water in the atmosphere is highly variable. Because water is important in weather and climate processes, a significant effort has been expended to develop new or improved remote sensing systems to mitigate this problem. One such system uses ground-based Global Positoning System (GPS) receivers to make accurate all-weather estimates of atmospheric refractivity at very low cost. This largely unanticipated application of GPS had led to a new and potentially significant upper-air observing system for meteorological agencies and researchers around the world (Wolfe & Gutman, 2000). The first and most mature use of GPS for this purpose is in the estimation of integrated (total column) precipitable water vapor above a fixed site (Duan et al., 1996, with improvements by Niell, 1996, and Fang et al., 1998). The techniques currently used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Forecast Systems Laboratory (NOAA/FSL) to collect, process, and distribute GPS water vapor observations are mature and almost ready for transition to operational use. NOAA/FSL has shown that GPS integrated water vapor data can be used effectively in objective (i. e., numerical weather prediction) and subjective weather forecasting. To understand the strengths and limitations of GPS for weather forecasting, it is essential to understant what types of information are currently available to forecasters and modelers, and how models use the data to describe the current and probable future state of the atmosphere. It is also important to understand the current trends in modern weather prediction to ensure that GPS observing system play a significant role in the future.

Short-Range Forecast Impact from Assimilation of GPS-IPW Observations into the Rapid Update Cycle

Abstract Integrated precipitable water (IPW) estimates derived from time delays in the arrival of global positioning system (GPS) satellite signals are a relatively recent, high-frequency source of atmospheric moisture information available for real-time data assimilation. Different experimental versions of the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) have assimilated these observations to assess GPS-IPW impact on moisture forecasts. In these tests, GPS-IPW data have proven to be a useful real-time source of moisture information, leading to more accurate short-range moisture forecasts when added to other observations. A multiyear experiment with parallel (one with GPS-IPW processed 24 h after the fact, one without) 3-h cycles using the original 60-km RUC was run from 1999 to 2004 with verification of each cycle against rawinsonde observations. This experiment showed a steady increase in the positive impact in short-range relative humidity (RH) forecasts due to the GPS-IPW data as the number of observing sites increased f...

The Validation of AIRS Retrievals of Integrated Precipitable Water Vapor Using Measurements from a Network of Ground-Based GPS Receivers over the Contiguous United States

A robust and easily implemented verification procedure based on the column-integrated precipitable water (IPW) vapor estimates derived from a network of ground-based global positioning system (GPS) receivers has been used to assess the quality of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) IPW retrievals over the contiguous United States. For a period of six months from April to October 2004, excellent agreement has been realized between GPS-derived IPW estimates and those determined from AIRS, showing small monthly bias values ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 mm and root-mean-square (rms) differences of 4 mm or less. When the spatial (latitude–longitude) window for the GPS and AIRS matchup observations is reduced from the initial 1U2 °b y1U2 °t o1U4 °b y1U4°, the rms differences are reduced. Analysis revealed that the observed IPW biases between the instruments are strongly correlated to the reported surface pressure differences between the GPS and AIRS observational points. Adjusting the AIRS IPW values to account for the surface pressure discrepancies resulted in significant reductions of the bias between GPS and AIRS. A similar reduction can be obtained by comparing only (GPS–AIRS) match-up pairs for which the corresponding surface pressure differences are 0.5 mb or less. The comparisons also revealed that the AIRS IPW tends to be relatively dry in moist atmospheres (when IPW values 40 mm) but wetter in dry cases (when IPW values 10 mm). This is consistent with the documented bias of satellite measurements toward the first guess used in retrieval algorithms. However, additional study is needed to verify whether the AIRS water vapor retrieval process is the source of the discrepancies. It is shown that the IPW bias and rms differences have a seasonal dependency, with a maximum in summer (bias 1.2 mm, rms 4.14 mm) and minimum in winter (bias 0.5 mm, rms 3 mm).

Developing a Performance Measure for Snow-Level Forecasts

Abstract The snow level, or altitude in the atmosphere where snow melts to rain, is an important variable for hydrometeorological prediction in mountainous watersheds; yet, there is no operational performance measure associated with snow-level forecasts in the United States. To establish a performance measure, it is first necessary to establish the baseline performance associated with snow-level forecasts. Using data collected by vertically pointing Doppler radars, an automated algorithm has been developed to detect the altitude of maximum radar reflectivity in the radar bright band that results from the precipitation melting process. This altitude can be used as a proxy for the snow level, partly because it always exists below the freezing level, which is defined as the altitude of the 0°C isotherm. The skill of freezing-level forecasts produced by the California–Nevada River Forecast Center (CNRFC) is evaluated by comparing spatially interpolated and forecaster-adjusted numerical model freezing-level fo...

Using GPS-IPW in a 4-D data assimilation system

The NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) has been continuously calculating integrated atmospheric precipitable water (IPW) from GPS signal delays since 1994. Using rapid orbit information, these data have the accuracy required for use in a numerical weather prediction model through data assimilation. Parallel cycles with and without GPS-IPW data have been running at FSL since November 1997 using the 60-km Rapid Update Cycle (RUC). Verification of the analysis and the 3, 6, and 12-h forecasts against rawinsondes has been ongoing throughout the experiment. Results from these statistics show a consistent improvement in short-range forecasts of relative humidity when the GPS data are included. Precipitation verification has also been calculated for this experiment, and results show that GPS data also improve these forecasts. Recently, the average number of available GPS observations jumped from 18 to 56, and results for November–December 1999 show that the previous slight positive signal is now amplified to a stronger positive impact on the short-range moisture forecasts.

A Twenty-First-Century California Observing Network for Monitoring Extreme Weather Events

AbstractDuring Northern Hemisphere winters, the West Coast of North America is battered by extratropical storms. The impact of these storms is of paramount concern to California, where aging water supply and flood protection infrastructures are challenged by increased standards for urban flood protection, an unusually variable weather regime, and projections of climate change. Additionally, there are inherent conflicts between releasing water to provide flood protection and storing water to meet requirements for the water supply, water quality, hydropower generation, water temperature and flow for at-risk species, and recreation. To improve reservoir management and meet the increasing demands on water, improved forecasts of precipitation, especially during extreme events, are required. Here, the authors describe how California is addressing their most important and costliest environmental issue—water management—in part, by installing a state-of-the-art observing system to better track the area’s most seve...

Profiles of radio refractive index and humidity derived from radar wind profilers and the Global Positioning System

It has often been pointed out that the Bragg backscatter of radar waves from elevated turbulent layers is very highly correlated with the height gradient of radio refractive index (RI) through these layers. However, many users need the profiles of RI, or the associated humidity, rather than profiles of their gradients. Simple integration of the gradients is usually not feasible because of ground or sea clutter and because biological scatterers such as insects and birds often severely contaminate the lower range gates. We show that if the total height-integrated RI is independently available (say, from the Global Positioning System (GPS)), and if the surface value of RI is known, the profiles of RI are retrievable with good accuracy. For those profiler systems equipped with a radio acoustic sounding system to measure temperature, the humidity is also retrievable. The method is demonstrated with data collected in southern California, where 7 hours of profiler data were recorded at 449 MHZ along with GPS data. Three radiosonde balloons were launched during the period, and the profiles of RI from the balloon and the profiler are compared. The advantages of the system are its invulnerability to nonprecipitating clouds (at frequencies of 449 MHZ or lower) and that it uses only facilities that will soon be deployed globally. Simulations are used to assess errors from various factors such as loss of sign of the gradient of the potential RI (important especially during some frontal events) and the presence of biological contaminants in some geographical areas (such as coastal zones and some agricultural areas at night).