Lower tropospheric fields analysis derived from GPS RO data

HIERRO, R.; P. ALEXANDER; P. LLAMEDO; E. GARCÍA-ORTEGA; A. DE LA TORRE

Conferencia; 40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 2-10 August 2014, in Moscow, Russia; 2014

A powerful tool for studying the global distribution of water vapor with a moderate/high spatial and temporal resolution is the Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) technique. Using FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC mission data (2006-2013) we reproduce global, synoptic, and regional climatological patterns. Previous knowledges regarding global and synoptic/regional patterns of temperature, equivalent potential temperature, specic humidity, precipitable water, and pressure are veried. Monsoon regions show high values of precipitable water while the global and regional dry zones present lower values of this quantity. The temporal behavior at dierent scales of the low level humidity for both hemispheres is corroborated. Also, a principal component analysis is used to compare GPS RO data with Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation radar (PR) over a region including South America, the Pacic and Atlantic Oceans.