For the first time fengyun3 C satellite-global navigation satellite system occultation sounder achieved spaceborne Bei Dou system radio occultation

Abstract

The radio occultation (RO) technique using signals from the global navigation satellite system, is widely used to observe the atmosphere for applications such as numerical weather prediction (NWP) and global climate monitoring. Since 1995, there have been turborogue sounder on board global positioning system/meteorology, black jack sounder on board challenging minisatellite payload and gravity recovery and climate experiment, IGOR sounder on board constellation observing system for meteorology, ionosphere and climate, GRAS on board meteorological operational, which have been recieving a large number of RO data, but their observed signals come only from global positioning system (GPS). These RO data have been wildly used in NWP and climate monitoring, however they cannot meet the requirements for high accuracy and real time atmosphere observation, in this case compatible RO sounder to obtain more RO observations is significant. Global navigation satellite system occultation sounder (GNOS) on board the fengyun3 C (FY3 C) satellite, which is the first Bei Dou system (BDS)/GPS compatible RO sounder in the world, was launched on 23 September 2013. Up to now, lots of RO observations have been obtained. In this study, the components of GNOS are introduced; one-day GNOS RO events and their global distribution are analyzed; compared with the GPS RO observations, the accuracy and consistency of BDS real-time positioning results and BDS RO products are analyzed. The preliminary results show that the BDS can enhance the number of RO events by 33.3%; the average deviation and standard deviation of BDS real time positioning results are 6 m and 7 m, respectively; the BDS/GPS difference standard deviation of refrectivity, temperature, humidity, pressure and ionospheric electron density are lower than 2%, 2 K, 1.5 g/kg, 2%, and 15.6%, respectively. The BDS observations/products are consistent with those of GPS, therefore BDS RO products can bring benefit to numerical wheather prediction and global chlimate change analysis.