An overview of COST action 716: Exploitation of ground-based GPS for climate and numerical weather prediction applications

COST Action 716 is in the area of meteorology and is run under supervision of the European Community. The primary objective of the COST action is "ass essment of the operational potential on an international scale of the explo itation of a ground-based GPS system to provide near real-time observations for numerical weather prediction and climate applications". The paper desc ribes the nature of a COST action and gives a brief description of meteorol ogical applications of ground-based networks of Global Positioning System ( GPS) receivers. The content of the COST Action 716, its present status, and the plans for future work are described. The first two years of work has r esulted in a common view in the geodetic and meteorological communities on how to proceed with the assessment of the ground-based GPS technique. (C) 2 001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.