The COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 Mission: Early Results

被引：744

作者：

Anthes, R. A.

Bernhardt, P. A. ^{[2
]}

Chen, Y. ^{[3
]}

Cucurull, L. ^{[1
]}

Dymond, K. F. ^{[2
]}

Ector, D. ^{[1
]}

Healy, S. B. ^{[4
]}

Ho, S. -P. ^{[1
,3
]}

Hunt, D. C. ^{[1
]}

Kuo, Y. -H. ^{[1
]}

Liu, H. ^{[3
]}

Manning, K. ^{[3
]}

Mccormick, C.

Meehan, T. K. ^{[5
]}

Randel, W. J. ^{[3
]}

Rocken, C. ^{[1
]}

Schreiner, W. S. ^{[1
]}

Sokolovskiy, S. V. ^{[1
]}

Syndergaard, S. ^{[1
]}

Thompson, D. C. ^{[6
]}

Trenberth, K. E. ^{[3
]}

Wee, T. -K. ^{[1
]}

Yen, N. L. ^{[7
]}

Zeng, Z. ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Univ Corp Atmospher Res, Boulder, CO USA

[2] Naval Res Lab, Washington, DC USA

[3] Natl Ctr Atmospher Res, Boulder, CO 80307 USA

[4] European Ctr Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Reading RG2 9AX, Berks, England

[5] Jet Prop Lab, Pasadena, CA USA

[6] Utah State Univ, Logan, UT 84322 USA

[7] Natl Space Org, Hsinchu, Taiwan

来源：

BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY | 2008年 / 89卷 / 03期

关键词：

D O I：

10.1175/BAMS-89-3-313

中图分类号：

P4 [大气科学（气象学）];

学科分类号：

0706 ; 070601 ;

摘要：

The radio occultation (RO) technique, which makes use of radio signals transmitted by the global positioning system (GPS) satellites, has emerged as a powerful and relatively inexpensive approach for sounding the global atmosphere with high precision, accuracy, and vertical resolution in all weather and over both land and ocean. On 15 April 2006, the joint Taiwan-U.S. Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC)/Formosa Satellite Mission 3 (COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3, hereafter COSMIC) mission, a constellation of six micro satellites, was launched into a 512-km orbit. After launch the satellites were gradually deployed to their final orbits at 800 km, a process that took about 17 months. During the early weeks of the deployment, the satellites were spaced closely, offering a unique opportunity to verify the high precision of RO measurements. As of September 2007, COSMIC is providing about 2000 RO soundings per day to support the research and operational communities. COSMIC RO data are of better quality than those from the previous missions and penetrate much farther down into the troposphere; 70%-90% of the soundings reach to within 1 km of the surface on a global basis. The data are having a positive impact oil operational global weather forecast models. With the ability to penetrate deep into the lower troposphere using an advanced open-loop tracking technique, the COSMIC RO instruments can observe the structure of the tropical atmospheric boundary layer. The value of RO for climate monitoring and research is demonstrated by the precise and consistent observations between different instruments, platforms, and missions. COSMIC observations are capable of intercalibrating microwave measurements from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) on different satellites. Finally, unique and useful observations of the ionosphere are being obtained using the RO receiver and two other instruments on the COSMIC satellites, the tiny ionosphere photometer (TIP) and the tri-band beacon.

引用

页码：313 / 333

页数：21

共 65 条

[1]

Anderson JL, 2001, MON WEATHER REV, V129, P2884, DOI 10.1175/1520-0493(2001)129<2884:AEAKFF>2.0.CO

[2]

[3]

ANTHES RA, 2006, UCAR Q

[4] Lower troposphere refractivity bias in GPS occultation retrievals [J].