A New Method for Estimating Tropospheric Zenith Wet-Component Delay of GNSS Signals from Surface Meteorology Data

Abstract

A new concept is proposed for estimating the zenith wet delay (ZWD) and atmospheric weighted average temperature by inputting the temperature, total pressure, and specific humidity from surface weather data. In addition, a new ZWD integral method is described for highly accurate calculation of the ZWD from radiosonde observation. To evaluate the advantages of the new discrete integral formula, we utilized the 8-year radiosonde profiles of 85 stations in China from 2010 to 2017 to validate the accuracy of the radiosonde-derived ZWD. The results showed that the mean accuracy of the ZWD derived from radiosonde data was 4.28 mm. Next, the new ZWD model was assessed using two sets of reference values derived from radiosonde data and GNSS precise point positioning in China. The results confirm that the new development improved the accuracy of the estimation of the tropospheric wet delay from the surface meteorological data. The performance of this new model can be seen as an important step toward accurately correcting the tropospheric delay in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) real-time navigation and positioning. It can also be used in GNSS meteorology for weather forecasting and climate research.