GNSS remote sensing in the atmosphere, oceans, land and hydrology

Abstract

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) provides a continuous, high precision, global, real-time, and all weather navigation and positioning, which powerfully contributes to all scientific questions related to precise positioning on Earth's surface. Recently, the reflected and refracted signals from GNSS satellites resulted in many new applications in environmental remote sensing. The GNSS refracted signals from Radio Occultation satellites together with ground GNSS observations have produced wide applications in atmospheric remote sensing, including global monitoring of tropospheric water vapour, temperature and pressure, tropopause parameters and ionospheric parameters as well as ionospheric irregularities. The GNSS reflected signals from the ocean and land surface could determine the wave height, wind speed and wind direction of ocean surface and land surface conditions. In this paper, GNSS remote sensing applications in the atmosphere, oceans, land and hydrology are presented as well as recent results. With more and more GNSS satellite constellations in coming years, it is expected more and wider applications in various environment remote sensing. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.