Abstract
Dense Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations are beneficial for monitoring the small-scale troposphere turbulence in both spatiotemporal domains. Densification of current geodetic GNSS networks can be achieved by incorporating low-cost GNSS receivers and antennas, benefitting weather monitoring. This study aims to focus on real-time tropospheric delay estimation using real-time GNSS data streams collected by low-cost GNSS receivers and antennas. The results indicate that: (1) Low-cost GNSS devices can offer accuracies of 7.5 mm in winter and 10.8 mm in summer for real-time zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) estimations; (2) By applying the phase center variation corrections for low-cost GNSS antennas, which are often ignored in previous studies on low-cost GNSS applications, can produce more reliable real-time ZTD estimations; (3) Low-cost GNSS devices can capture the ZTD fluctuations under heavy precipitation events in a real-time mode, showing a great potential as sensors to monitoring severe weather. These results underscore the viability of low-cost GNSS devices as cost-effective sensors that complement geodetic GNSS equipment in real-time troposphere monitoring and forecasting, especially at small scales. Their integration aids in the densification of existing monitoring networks, thereby bolstering GNSS meteorology applications.
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Data availability
The reanalysis data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) are available at https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu. The real-time GNSS-ZTD results can be obtained from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the efforts of GFZ for providing SSRA00GFZ0 products, the Hubei Meteorological Bureau for providing hourly rainfall data and Antenna Calibrations Website of NGS for providing the antenna PCVs. We also thank the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) for online climate data. We also thank the careful check and valuable advice from Dr. Alfred Leick.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42274043) and the National Key Research & Development Program (No. 2023YFA1009100). The second author was supported by Wuhan Talents Plan (2023). The first author was support by China Scholarship Council (202304910368).
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LL and HZ contributed to conceptualization, methodology, software, and writing—original draft. HZ and YY helped in supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition. MA and BS done supervision, improving the draft, and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Li, L., Zhang, H., Yuan, Y. et al. On the real-time tropospheric delay estimates using low-cost GNSS receivers and antennas. GPS Solut 28, 119 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-024-01655-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-024-01655-1