Zurich researchers want to detect storms earlier with GPS data
Published: Wednesday, Mar 20th 2024, 10:20
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Zurich researchers can use GPS data to detect storms earlier. This is because thunderstorms and heavy rain have an impact on signal quality, as a team from ETH Zurich has shown in a new study published in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters".
These findings could one day not only make weather forecasts more precise, but also contribute to the early detection of extreme weather events, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) announced on Wednesday.
The researchers came across this after a severe storm in Zurich in July 2021, which caused the GPS evaluation to fail at the measuring stations on the roof of the Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry on the Hönggerberg campus.
Disturbs signal-to-noise ratio
"However, we were initially unable to explain why this was the case," said Matthias Aichinger-Rosenberger, lead author of the study, according to the university. The analyses of the data from this storm in July 2021, as well as another storm in summer 2021, showed that such storms influenced the signal-to-noise ratio.
This shows how strong the signals are that reach the earth. While the two storms swept over the measuring station, this ratio decreased significantly, meaning that the quality of the signals deteriorated considerably. When the storms were over, the signal was back in the normal range, as the researchers showed in the study.
According to the scientists, this is big news: until now, it was assumed that GPS was a weather-independent system. It has now been shown that GPS data is sensitive enough to detect atmospheric disturbances.
Valuable for flight operations
In order to build a good early detection system from this, however, there would have to be a denser network of measuring stations, the researchers admitted. This would make it possible to determine exactly where a thunderstorm is heading and at what speed it is moving. According to the researchers, such information would be valuable for flight operations, for example.
This is what the researchers now want to do: In addition to refining the method, the scientists are planning to expand their research work throughout Switzerland and also at European level and to extend their network accordingly, according to the ETH.
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