ECMWF hosted the GRAS Satellite Application Facility (SAF) Workshop on the "Applications of GPS radio occultation measurements" from 16 to 18 June 2008.
The GRAS Meteorology SAF is a EUMETSAT-funded project that develops an operational radio occultation system responsible for delivering temperature, pressure, and humidity profiles in real time and software products for numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and for carrying out related research. GRAS stands for GNSS (combined GPS and GLONASS positioning systems) Receiver for Atmospheric Sounding. For more information on the GRAS SAF see here.
The workshop brought together many of the leading international experts in the use of GPS radio occultation measurements for climate studies and operational NWP. The aim was to exchange the latest ideas in the field, and use these to provide a set of recommendations that would inform the future work of the GRAS SAF, ECMWF and the broader community.
Seventeen invited talks were given at the workshop on:
- The status of current and future missions
- The assimilation of GPS radio occultation at the NWP centres
- Planetary Boundary Layer and Altimetry applications
- Climate and reanalysis applications
All presentations are available here.
Three working groups considered issues relating to future missions, NWP and climate.