Advanced Global Navigation Satellite Systems Tropospheric Products for Monitoring Severe Weather Events and Climate (GNSS4SWEC)

Other conference contribution, 2013

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have revolutionised positioning, navigation, and timing, becoming a common part of our everyday life. Aside from these well-known civilian and commercial applications, GNSS is now an established atmospheric observing system which can accurately sense water vapour, the most abundant greenhouse gas, accounting for 60-70 % of atmospheric warming. Water vapour is under-sampled in the current meteorological and climate observing systems, obtaining and exploiting more high-quality humidity observations is essential to weather forecasting and climate monitoring. The European COST Action ES1206 ”Advanced Global Navigation Satellite Systems tropospheric products for monitoring severe weather events and climate (GNSS4SWEC)” will address new and improved capabilities from concurrent developments in both the GNSS and the meteorological communities. For the first time, the synergy of the three GNSS systems (GPS, GLONASS and Galileo) will be used to develop new, advanced tropospheric products, exploiting the full potential of multi-GNSS water vapour estimates on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from real-time monitoring and forecasting of severe weather, to climate research. In addition, the COST Action ES1206 will promote the use of meteorological data in GNSS positioning, navigation, and timing services and it will stimulate knowledge transfer and data sharing throughout Europe.