Constructing temporal and spatial water vapor figures by GPS remote sensing along slant rays

A Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver can generally track 5-7 rays from GPS satellites at any moment, and water vapor along these ray paths (slant-path water vapor, SWV) may be retrieved using the methods developed in recent years. This paper suggests two new parameters-absolute vertical SWV (VSWV) and relative VSWV derived from SWV, and their temporal and spatial figures can reflect the heterogeneous distribution and variation of water vapor field. This approach has been applied to the weather diagnoses in a severe storm event in Beijing during July 2004, and it is concluded that the temporal and spatial figures of absolute VSWV and relative VSWV can be useful in monitoring the evolution of water vapor field and be potential in better understanding the precipitation process.