Interpretation of the tropospheric gradients estimated with GPS during the hurricane Harvey

GRAFFIGNA, VICTORIA; HERNÁNDEZ PAJARES, MANUEL; GENDE, MAURICIO; AZPILICUETA, FRANCISCO; ANTICO, PABLO

Earth and Space Science

Wiley

Año: 2019

2333-5084

During the last decade Global Positioning System (GPS) Continuous Operating Reference Stations (CORS) networks have become a new important data source for meteorology. This has dramatically improved the ability to remotely sense the atmosphere under the influence of severe mesoscale and synoptic systems. The Zenith Tropospheric Delay (ZTD) is one of the atmospheric variables continuously observed and its horizontal variations, the horizontal tropospheric gradients are routinely computed nowadays within the dual-frequency GPS processing but their interpretation and relationship with the weather is still an open question. The purpose of this paper is to contribute in this direction by studying the effect that hurricane Harvey had on the spatial and temporal behavior of the ZTDs and gradients, when it reached Texas coast, during August 18-31st, 2017. The results show that ZTD time series present a clear and rapid increase larger than 10 cm in a few hours when the hurricane reached the area. Gradients behaviorÃ?Ä?show that the hurricane also produced significant changes on them,Ã?Ä?sinceÃ?Ä?the magnitude and predominant directions beforeÃ?Ä?and after the hurricane arrivedÃ?Ä?are completely different.Ã?Ä?Noticeably,Ã?Ä?the gradient vectors before the landing are consistently related to the horizontal winds and pressure fields. In this manuscript we demonstrate that the ZTD gradients can show a consistent signature under severe weather events, strongly suggesting their potential application for short-term weather forecasting.