A regional GPS Meteorology Application: The Basilicata Experiment
Pacione, R. ; Rutigliano, P. ; Vespe, F. ; et al.
Jan - 2003

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type: Conference Proceedings

Abstract
During the last years at the Matera Space Geodesy Center (ASI/CGS) space geodesy activities related to atmospheric applications have grown up. In particular, studies on the troposphere for meteorological applications using GPS signal, started in 1999, have been developed in the framework of national and international context (MAGIC EC project, COST 716 Action). Presently, at CGS, the data of 35 European stations are analysed on hourly basis to produce tropospheric Total Zenith path Delay (ZTD), results being continuously available on: geodaf.mt.asi.it. To carry on the fruitful research on the use of GPS derived tropospheric parameters for meteorological applications and climate research and the experiences of assimilation of GPS PWV into the MM5 non hydrostatic modeling, the Italian Space Agency, Universita de LAquila and Parco Scientifico e Tecnologico dAbruzzo (PSTdA) decided to start a new dedicated project, installing 10 new permanent GPS stations in Basilicata region. These stations are fully co-located with pre-existent meteorological stations equipped with state-of-the-art surface sensors managed by ALSIA (Regional Agency for the Development of Agriculture) that will provide the ground meteorological data (surface pressure, primarily) useful for optimal exploitation of GPS data for meteorological application. In the final configuration, all the stations will provide near real time data on hourly basis to derive ZTD to be assimilated by (PSTdA) Of course the GPS data coming from these regional network could be also useful for many other applications: geodynamic studies, hazard management, earthquakes research and so on. At present, the installation of the new GPS stations is in the final phases and the whole system is planned to become full operative in the next future. In this work, the design and the operational characteristics of the network as well as the outline of the analysing procedure are reported, together with the preliminary results of the analysis if available.

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