Precipitable Water Vapor Converted from GNSS-ZTD and ERA5 Datasets for the Monitoring of Tropical Cyclones

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are intense rotating storm systems, characterized by strong winds, heavy humidity and storm surges, and usually cause an abnormal increase in regional water vapor during the period of their occurrence. Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is well-established and initially mainly for positioning, navigation and timing. However, due to their global coverage and 24/7 operability under all weather conditions, GNSS has been widely used in meteorology such as the retrieval of precipitable water vapor (PWV). Since PWV time series obtained from a regional ground GNSS tracking stations network has high temporal and spatial resolutions, in this research, the temporal and spatial variation trends of regional PWVs during several TCs' periods in Hong Kong were investigated, and a new method using high-resolution GNSS-PWV time series to estimate a TC's movement was proposed. Test data were from 15 GNSS tracking stations equipped with meteorological sensors, and three GNSS stations without meteorological sensors but using meteorological data interpolated from ERA5 (fifth-generation reanalysis dataset of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting) dataset, and six TC events occurred in 2017 were selected for cases studies. Moreover, for a better accuracy of GNSS-PWV, which is converted from the zenith wet delay of the GNSS signal multiplying a conversion factor that uses a weighted mean temperature (T m), a seasonal multi-factor T m model was established and tested. Results showed that the new T m model outperformed the previous regional T m model used in Hong Kong. In addition, based on the temporal variation trend and spatial distribution of the regional PWV, one can determine if a TC approaches the region. A geometric approach to estimating a TC's movement was developed and its test results agreed well with the truth. These results suggest the potential of using GNSS signals to monitor the movements of TCs for short-time TC forecasting due to their high temporal resolution. INDEX TERMS Tropical cyclone, global navigation satellite system, precipitable water vapor, weighted mean temperature, ERA5. I. INTRODUCTION Over recent years, increasing tropical cyclone (TC) events occurred frequently in the North Pacific, Indian Ocean, Southwest Pacific and North Atlantic, causing considerable damage in nearby cities [1]-[5]. Many countries, provinces and cities have set up meteorological departments, which take the early warning and forecasting of TCs as a key task. Water vapor, as a main component of the atmosphere, is a key factor The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Gerardo Di Martino. influencing TCs' development [6], [7]. The monitoring of regional water vapor variation is critical for the forecasting of the movement, intensity and rainfall of TCs [8]-[10]. Traditional techniques for the acquisition of atmospheric water vapor, such as infrared satellite remote sensing, radiosondes (RS) and microwave radiometers, have the disa...

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