A study of the coreless winter effects on the GPS tropospheric delay in Antarctica

A coreless winter phenomenon is one of the remarkable Antarctica's climate that has a great dynamic feature in terms of weather and climate on a global basis. This phenomenon related to the sudden warming of surface temperatures during the winter season. Winters are severe in Antarctica. Therefore, this paper aims to characterize of this phenomenon using a Global Positioning System (GPS). The zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) and the precipitable water vapor (PWV) measured from GPS were investigated to establish the GPS signals had affected by this phenomenon. For this study, data gathered over the period of 2009 at four permanent GPS stations in Antarctica were processed. Results demonstrated that the occurrence of coreless winter was clearly detected by the GPS ZTD and PWV, and found with a warming peak occurred in June. This warming peak also compared with surface temperature measurement and found to agree well with the physical properties of coreless winter. From this observation, posing that the GPS sensing has the capability and useful tool to monitor the severe weather conditions like coreless winter towards improving the global climate change prediction.