Inclusion of high resolution MODIS maps on a 3D tropospheric water vapor GPS tomography model

Observing the water vapor distribution on the troposphere remains a challenge for the weather forecast. Radiosondes provide precise water vapor profiles of the troposphere, but lack geographical and temporal coverage, while satellite meteorological maps have good spatial resolution but even poorer temporal resolution. GPS has proved its capacity to measure the integrated water vapor in all weather conditions with high temporal sampling frequency. However these measurements lack a vertical water vapor discretization. Reconstruction of the slant path GPS observation to the satellite allows oblique water vapor measurements. Implementation of a 3D grid of voxels along the troposphere over an area where GPS stations are available enables the observation ray tracing. A relation between the water vapor density and the distanced traveled inside the voxels is established, defining GPS tomography. An inverse problem formulation is needed to obtain a water vapor solution. The combination of precipitable water vapor (PWV) maps obtained from MODIS satellite data with the GPS tomography is performed in this work. The MODIS PWV maps can have 1 or 5 km pixel resolution, being obtained 2 times per day in the same location at most. The inclusion of MODIS PWV maps provides an enhanced horizontal resolution for the tomographic solution and benefits the stability of the inversion problem. A 3D tomographic grid was adjusted over a regional area covering Lisbon, Portugal, where a GNSS network of 9 receivers is available. Radiosonde measurements in the area are used to evaluate the 3D water vapor tomography maps.