Abstract
The tropospheric delay is an important error source in the Global Positioning System (GPS) positioning and navigation applications. Although most of the tropospheric delays can be removed in the double-differencing (DD) positioning mode, their remaining residuals can still contaminate the positioning accuracy and become unpredictable when tropospheric condition encounters severe variations such as during a tropical cyclone (TC) event. We investigated the positioning performance of five baselines with lengths ranging from 7.8 to 49.9 km during the 2017 TC Hato. The results showed that the TC Hato brought a significant disturbance to the GPS baseline positioning results, particularly in the vertical (up) component. The TC Hato started to affect Hong Kong and the root mean squares (RMS) of GPS positioning errors increased dramatically from about 30 to 140 mm, when it was at a distance of 400–600 km from Hong Kong on August 22, 2017. We found that the vertical positioning errors on that day have the major periods: 2.7 h, 3.0 h, 3.4 h, 4.0 h, and 4.8 h. Examining the wet and hydrostatic parts of the tropospheric delays via the continuous wavelet spectral analysis, we found that the periodical variation of the positioning results on August 22 was caused by the periodical variation of the precipitable water vapor (PWV). The variation of differenced PWV between two baseline stations had consistent periods of 2–5 h. Besides, the periods of differenced PWV time series are in good agreement with the spiral rainband in the TC. This finding suggests that the TC Hato induce periodical PWV variations at two GPS stations of baseline, which resulted in GPS positioning errors of the same periods.
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source: Hong Kong Observatory, obtainable from the Atmospheric and Environmental Database, hosted by the Environmental Central Facility, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, http://cozumel.ust.hk/dataview/hko_radar/current/)
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Data availability
The Lands Department of the Government (https://www.geodetic.gov.hk/en/rinex/downv.aspx) of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) provided the GPS data from the Hong Kong Satellite Positioning Reference Station Network (SatRef). The Hong Kong Observatory provided the image of radar echoes (http://cozumel.ust.hk/dataview/hko_radar/current/). The International GNSS Service (IGS) provided the daily precise orbit and clock GPS products from the ftp address ftp://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gps/products/ during the period of August 16–26, 2017. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provided the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) data on tropical cyclones (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/international-best-track-archive-for-climate-stewardship-ibtracs/v04r00/access/csv/). In addition, we also would like to thank the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) (https://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/ptree/userguide.html) for providing the Himawari-8 L1 gridded data. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) provided the data set of ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate (ERA-Interim), which is available on the website https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim-full-daily/levtype=sfc/. The data used in this study have been uploaded to the public domain repository Figshare, which is a free data repository open to the public. The daily GPS data in the format of Receiver Independent Exchange Format (RINEX) 2.11 during the period from August 16–26, 2017 can be download from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12799943.v1. The precise daily orbit (sp3) and clock (clk_30s) GPS products are available from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12799949.v1. The records of the tropical cyclone Hato (1713) are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12781820.v1. The Himawari-8 image at 04:00 UT on August 22, 2017 can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12799931.v1. The water vapor pressure and temperature of ERA-Interim hourly data on pressure levels ranging from 21 to 26 N and 112 E to 123 E in latitude and longitude in August 2017 can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12799964.v1.
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Acknowledgment
The grant support from the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project No.: 41730109) is acknowledged. The grant supports from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) projects (B-Q61L PolyU 152222/17E) are highly appreciated. The support from the project (No. 1-BBWJ) in the Emerging Frontier Area (EFA) Scheme of the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is also acknowledged.
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Yu, S., Liu, Z. Tropical cyclone-induced periodical positioning disturbances during the 2017 Hato in the Hong Kong region. GPS Solut 25, 109 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01112-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01112-3