INTOMO operator for GNSS multi-source tomography based on 3D ray tracing technique

Abstract The current GNSS meteorology literature focuses on ground-based and space-based GNSS observations separately, without exploring potential synergies. In this study, we propose combining the two data sources using GNSS tomography to overcome current limitations in (1) horizontal resolution of GNSS space-based, (2) low vertical resolution of GNSS ground-based tropospheric retrievals when the number of GNSS ground-based observations is limited and (3) instability of the tomography system due to a lack of observations traversing the atmosphere horizontally. Our study on the combination of GNSS ground-based and space-based presents an innovative way for data integration based on uncertainty estimation. The developed integrated tomography operator, based on 3D ray tracing principles, is tested on 30 days of simulated data with 101 ground stations and over 240 radio occultation events, using three different station layouts. The a priori data introduced into the tomography processing is from a deterministic model, while ray tracing uses the ERA5 reanalysis wet refractivity field to obtain input data for individual test cases. The results are verified by comparing tomography output to ERA5 reanalysis. We observed a decrease in tomography RMSE between 2% and 16% in the case of an integrated solution, depending on GNSS station layout and the number and geometry of radio occultation ray paths. We show that a single RO event during one processing epoch can shift the wet refractivity estimates by 2 to 5 ppm closer to the correct solution compared to ground-based-only GNSS tomography.