Time-Height Distribution of Water Vapor Derived by Moving Cell Tomography During Tsukuba GPS Campaigns

Abstract

Observations using a dense network of 75 Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers were carried out in Tsukuba, Japan, in October-November 2000 and July-September 2001. We have applied a tomography technique on the slant path propagation delay of the GPS signals to derive the temporal and spatial distribution of water vapor. In particular, we have employed the moving cell method, which was originally developed by Seko et al. (2000) for a beta-mesoscale precipitation system associated with the Baiu front. Because we are interested in local-scale phenomena, we tried to determine the water vapor distribution with a time resolution of ten minutes. The tomographic analyses resolve the water vapor variations during the meteorological events studied here.