The Marine Physical Laboratory. Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. The signals propagating from GPS satellites to ground-base GPS receivers are delayed by atmospheric water vapor. At land-based GPS stations, methods to estimate this delay have been developed by geodesists and geophysicists. Though the IPW measurements are routinely made from static land based receivers, this capability has not yet been demonstrated in the more complicated dynamic environment of an ocean platform.
Data processing is underway.
We have installed equipment on the SIO Marine Observatory to support our study of the propagation of infrared radiation. This region is interesting and problematic because temperature differences between the air and the sea surface cause refractivity changes, which in turn cause bending of the propagation paths. There are several important observed consequences of this ray-bending phenomenon. Detection of objects near the sea surface is difficult and it is important to understand which sensors are effective in this detection problem. We have mounted an infrared source on a 10-meter tower installed on the observatory.