CORRELATION BETWEEN PRECIPITABLE WATER AND

RAINFALL USING GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM (GPS)

TECHNIQUE

ABDELALI FADIL* AND DRISS BEN SARI

Mohammadia School of Engineering, Avenue Ibnsina B.P.
765 Rabat-Agdal, Rabat, Morocco

Abstract. We present the approach to remote sensing of water vapor based

on the Global Positioning System (GPS). Signals propagating from GPS
satellites to ground-based GPS receivers are delayed by atmospheric water
vapor. Given surface meteorological measurements, this delay can be
transformed into an estimate of the precipitable water overlying that
receiver. We validate GPS precipitable water at rabt station with National
Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) measurements. We show
short-term correlation between GPS and rainfall during two different
seasons, and we describe GPS tropospheric water vapor tomography, which
could be utilized in operational weather forecasting and in fundamental
research into atmospheric storm systems, the hydrologic cycle, atmospheric
chemistry, and global climate change (severe events particularly).

Keywords: Global Positioning System (GPS); troposphere; precipitable water

1. Introduction

Water vapor plays a crucial role in atmospheric processes that act over a
wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from global climate change to
micrometeorology. Water vapor is the most variable of the major
constituents of the atmosphere. Significant changes in the horizontal and

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Abdelali Fadil, Civil Engineering Dept., LAPR,
Mohammadia School of Engineering, Ibn Sina Avenue, Agdal, Rabat, Morocco, e-mail:
fadil@chandler.mit.edu

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A. Perrin et al. (eds.), Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere for Environmental Security, 271–284.
© 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.
272 A. FADIL AND D. BEN SARI
vertical distribution of water vapor can occur rapidly during active weather.
Signals propagation from GPS satellites to ground-based GPS receivers are
delayed by atmospheric water vapor. This delay is parameterized in terms
of time-varying Zenith Wet Delay (ZWD), which is retrieved by stochastic
filtering of the GPS data. Given surface temperature and pressure readings
at the GPS receiver, the retrieved ZWD can be transformed with very little
uncertainty into an estimate of the Integrated Water Vapor (IWV) overlying
that receiver.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) has proven to be an accurate
technique for the retrieval of integrated water vapor (IWV) above ground-
based receivers (Bevis el al., 1992). The consistency of IWV retrieved
from GPS with radiosondes and water vapor radiometers (WVR’s) is about
1~2 kg/m2 (i.e. 1~2 mm in precipitable water) (Tregoning et al., 1998;
Elgered et al., 1998). This makes GPS-IWV an extremely interesting
technique since water data are lacking over land (most contemporary space-
borne instruments perform well over the ocean, but much less over land).
Because of its increasing spatial density and its continuous recording, GPS
offer the possibility of observing the horizontal distribution of IWV with
unprecedented coverage and a temporal resolution of the order of 5 min
with the above mentioned accuracy.

2. What is GPS?

The Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking network was established to

provide high precision navigation and geodetic positioning. The system
consists of satellites tracking at 20.200 km in 12 sidereal hours quasi-
circular orbit around the earth and a ground-based network of support
stations to update the ephemeredes and clocks. Four to eight satellites are
visible anywhere in the world, at any time.
GPS satellites transmit atomic clock controlled L-band signals to
receivers on the earth. Time delays of the signal travel paths from multiple
satellites to a single receiver are used to establish the ground position of the
receiver. The components of the satellite’s message emitted every 30 sec
are:
x Satellite’s ephemeris factors.
x Fundamental frequency f0 = 10.23 MHz.
x Carrier L1 = 154f0 and Carrier L2 = 120f0.
x 3 Pseudo Random Noise (PRN): C/A = f0/10; P = f0; W = f0/20.
x Ionospheric coefficient Model.
Error sources affecting GPS measurements are classified into three classes: