Summer Colloquia 2004

2004 Summer Colloquium on
Atmospheric Remote Sensing Using the Global Positioning System
20 June - 2 July 2004
Boulder, Colorado

Hosted by the Advanced Study Program of NCAR and
The COSMIC Project of the UCAR Office of Programs

The Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation was developed for precise navigation and positioning. The GPS today consists of 28 satellites that transmit L-band radio signals. Other global navigation systems are under development and will greatly increase the amount of future satellites. A receiver on the ground can measure with high precision the phase delays of the GPS radio signal caused by the ionosphere and the neutral atmosphere. From these measurements, we can derive total electron content and atmospheric water vapor along the ray path between the GPS satellites and a ground-based receiver. A receiver on board a low-Earth orbiting satellite can provide vertical profiles of electron density, neutral atmosphere bending angles and refractivity. Over the past decade we have witnessed significant progress in the science and technology of both ground-based and space-based atmospheric remote sensing. The ground-based and space-based GPS atmospheric sensing data are expected to have a major impact on climate monitoring, global and regional weather prediction, ionospheric research, and space weather forecasting. This two-week colloquium is intended to provide students with an overview from the basic GPS atmospheric measurements to their applications in weather prediction, climate analysis, and ionospheric research. Courses to be presented in the colloquium will include: physics of microwave propagation, principles of the Global Positioning System, precipitable water vapor and slant-path GPS water vapor sensing, radio occultation, assimilation of GPS measurements, analysis of results from recent GPS radio occultation missions, applications of GPS data in numerical weather prediction, ionospheric research, space weather, and climate analysis, and development of advanced techniques such as the cross-link technology.

For the agenda and presentations click here

Lecturers:
Leading scientists and experts in the fields of space-based and ground-based GPS atmospheric remote sensing and their scientific applications were invited to give lectures. List of invited lecturers will be posted here.

Organization:
The colloquium was organized by Y.-H. Kuo (NCAR/UCAR), C. Rocken (UCAR), S. Sokolovskiy (UCAR), E. R. Kursinski (U. Arizona), and G. Hajj (JPL).

Field Trip:
Under the sponsorship of the NSF International Programs, a special field trip was organized to visit key GPS atmospheric remote sensing facilities in Taiwan and Japan for selected U.S. students, during the period of 3 - 14 July 2004. These facilities included the National Space Program Office in Taiwan, the Meteorological Research Institute and the Geological Survey Institute of Japan.

Field trip agenda and related links click here.

A list of field trip participants and their bio's can be found here.