Using GPS for weather forecasts
"...GPS data improves the real-time temperature field and the cross-calibration of the data from a number of satellite instruments." Image: BlackJack3D/iStockphoto The satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) technology that guides modern in-car navigation systems is now being used to improve weather forecasts. Researchers at RMIT University's SPACE Research Centre and the Bureau of Meteorology are using GPS and low earth orbit satellites to provide an additional type of temperature profile observation for use in weather forecasting computer models.The computer models draw on about a hundred thousand million current weather observations, including data from 30 to 40 complementary satellite instruments, to generate the information used by meteorologists to prepare weather forecasts.RMIT Adjunct Professor John Le Marshall, Research Program leader at the Bureau of Meteorology and former Inaugural Director of the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, a joint NOAA, NASA and DOD research initiative in Washington, said: "What we've found through our work with...