P. Fang et al., GPS METEOROLOGY - REDUCING SYSTEMATIC-ERRORS IN GEODETIC ESTIMATES FOR ZENITH DELAY, Geophysical research letters, 25(19), 1998, pp. 3583-3586
Differences between long term precipitable water (PW) time series deri
ved from radiosondes, microwave water vapor radiometers, and GPS stati
ons reveal offsets that are often as much as 1-2 mm PW. All three tech
niques are thought to suffer from systematic errors of order 1 mm PW.
Standard GPS processing algorithms are known to be sensitive to the ch
oice of elevation cutoff angle at this level. We present a processing
protocol that is shown to reduce elevation angle dependence in geodeti
c estimates of zenith delay and, hence, reduce the systematic errors i
n derived precipitable water. This protocol includes use of the Niell
zenith delay mapping functions and International GPS Service phase cen
ter models.