Use of GNSS Tropospheric Products for Climate Monitoring (Working Group 3)

There has been growing interest in recent years in the use of homogeneously reprocessed ground-based GNSS, VLBI, and DORIS measurements for climate applications. Existing datasets are reviewed and the sensitivity of tropospheric estimates to the processing details is discussed. The uncertainty in the derived IWV estimates and linear trends is around 1 kg m−2 RMS and ± 0.3 kg m−2 per decade, respectively. Standardized methods for ZTD outlier detection and IWV conversion are proposed. The homogeneity of final time series is limited however by changes in the stations equipment and environment. Various homogenization algorithms have been evaluated based on a synthetic benchmark dataset. The uncertainty of trends estimated from the homogenized times series is estimated to ±0.5 kg m−2 per decade. Reprocessed GNSS IWV data are analysed along with satellites data, reanalyses and global and regional climate model simulations. A selection of global and regional reprocessed GNSS datasets and ERA-interim reanalysis are made available through the GOP-TropDB tropospheric database and online service. A new tropo SINEX format, providing new features and simplifications, was developed and it is going to be adopted by all the IAG services.