Update December 4, 2008

  PW Estimates from PBO Network

   We are pleased to announce that the COSMIC program is now routinely including approximately 80 stations from the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) in our near real-time analysis of GPS data within the continental United States.

   These data are well distributed across the western US and should provide a substantial improvement in the characterization of water vapor in this undersampled region of the country.

   You can see an animation of the most current PW estimates overlaid upon a GOES IR image through this link: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/data/suominet/loop/loop2/suomi_ani_zoom.html

   The PW estimates from these sites can be accessed through our normal data paths (ldm, ftp, and via the web). More information can be found through the following link: http://www.suominet.ucar.edu/data/index.html

   Acknowledgements to PBO staff and UNAVCO for their efforts in augmenting these sites with surface meteorology sensors and rapid data downloading.

   A second set of acknowledgements to the people here at COSMIC who helped incorporate these stations into our SuomiNet analysis.

Posted by The SuomiNet Team.

Update August 15, 2008

  Upcoming Ocean Platforms Workshop, Oct 27-29, 2008

The COSMIC program will be hosting a planning meeting to discuss the scientific applications of deploying high precision GPS instrumentation on ocean platforms. We are soliciting broad participation from the community. All persons interested in this area of research are invited to attend. Registration and information can be found through the following link:
http://www.joss.ucar.edu/joss_psg/meetings/Meetings_2008/ocean_workshop/index.html

   Dr. Tetsuya Iwabuchi is now routinely assimilating precipitable water vapor estimates from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical weather model. These forecasts are now available on the web at: http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/~iwabuchi/caribbean/index.html. We expect to continue this assimilation study throughout the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season.

Posted by The Suominet Group

Update July 23, 2008

   Dr. Tetsuya Iwabuchi is now routinely assimilating precipitable water vapor estimates from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical weather model. These forecasts are now available on the web at: http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/~iwabuchi/caribbean/index.html. We expect to continue this assimilation study throughout the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season.

Posted by The Suominet Group

Update October 4, 2007

  An animation of GPS PW overlayed on GOES IR4 satellite images has been created for the Caribbean basin as hurricanes Dean and Emily move through the region. This animation can be viewed through our case studies page, or viewed directly at http://www.suominet.ucar.edu/dean/dean_pp.avi. We have also been including data from the Dominican Republic into our post-processed daily analysis to help augment the Caribbean data sets.

  Updated statistics comparing GPS PW estimates to both the ETA and GFS analysis fields are now available.

  As time permits, we are reanalyzing archived data using our most current processing strategies and the Bernese version 5.0 software. The global processing back to 2005 has been completed. North American processing back to 2006 is available, with 2005 results becoming available in the next couple of weeks.

  ASCII result files for individual stations within the North America region are now now available through our data download page: http://www.suominet.ucar.edu/data/index.html.
Results from the daily processing runs are available for 2006 and 2007. Hourly results are available for 2007.

Posted by The Suominet Group

Update August 16, 2007

  A new imagery product has been produced by Jeff Weber at Unidata that overlays GPS PW estimates on top of GOES IR4 satellite images. These animations should provide interesting views of tropical storms as they pass through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to Jeff and Unidata for providing this service.

  We are currently reprocessing historical data using the improved analysis strategies that are now implemented in the routine Suominet processing. Global results dating back to 2005 are available for download. Suominet stations in North America should soon be available back to 2005. We will also be increasing the number of stations that are included in the North American network as sub-networks from NOAA, DOT and other CORS networks are reprocessed.

  Finally, we are also computing differences in PWV between GPS estimates and ETA and GFS analysis fields. These results are being compiled and displayed for both the continental United States and Caribbean regions.

Posted by The Suominet Group

Update July 12, 2007

  Eight new GPS stations have recently been installed in Central America and the Caribbean. These new stations are being analyzed along with continuous data collected by the IGS, NGS, INEGI, University of West Indies, and Cayman Government. We expect to have four more stations operational by September of this year. All derived data products, including PW, are available through regular Suominet data distribution mechanisms. This includes LDM distribution of netCDF files, http access of ascii PWV files, and interactive plotting through our Web Database.

A yearly progress report related to the expansion of the network is also available: Caribbean Activities

Posted by John Braun

Update 10/2006
The COSMIC program has recently been funded by the National Science Foundation to expand Suominet into the Caribbean. The objective of this expansion is to improve the forecasts of hurricane track and intensity using continuous observations of integrated water vapor. We will install and operate a network of up to 15 GPS stations in the Caribbean. They will all be equipped with meteorological sensors and the data will be analyzed to retrieve precipitable water vapor (PW). The derived PW data will then be assimilated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to evaluate what impact they have on hurricane forecasts. We expect to significantly improve moisture fields within the model, leading to a better description of the water budget, and therefore improved hurricane intensity and track predictions.

Posted by John Braun