Global monitoring of tropospheric water vapor with GPS radio occultation aboard CHAMP

The paper deals with application of GPS radio occultation (RO) measurements aboard CHAMP for the retrieval of tropospheric water vapor profiles. The GPS RO technique provides a powerful tool for atmospheric sounding which requires no calibration, is not affected by clouds, aerosols or precipitation, and provides an almost uniform global coverage. We briefly overview data processing and retrieval of vertical refractivity, temperature and water vapor profiles from GPS RO observations. CHAMP RO data are available since 2001 with up to 200 high resolution atmospheric profiles per day. Global validation of CHAMP water vapor profiles with radiosonde data reveals a bias of about 0.2 g/kg and a standard deviation of less than 1 g/kg specific humidity in the lower troposphere. We demonstrate potentials of CHAMP RO retrievals for monitoring the mean tropospheric water vapor distribution on a global scale.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

GPS radio occultation with CHAMP and SAC-C: global monitoring of thermal tropopause parameters

In this study the global lapse-rate tropopause (LRT) pressure, temperature, potential temperature, and sharpness are discussed based on Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultations (RO) from the German CHAMP (CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload) and the U.S.-Argentinian SAC-C (Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas-C) satellite missions. Results with respect to seasonal variations are compared with operational radiosonde data and ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast) operational analyses. Results on the tropical quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) are updated from an earlier study. CHAMP RO data are available continuously since May 2001 with on average 150 high resolution temperature profiles per day. SAC-C data are available for several periods in 2001 and 2002. In this study temperature data from CHAMP for the period May 2001-December 2004 and SAC-C data from August 2001-October 2001 and March 2002-November 2002 were used, respectively. The bias between GPS RO temperature profiles and radiosonde data was found to be less than 1.5K between 300 and 10hPa with a standard deviation of 2-3K. Between 200-20hPa the bias is even less than 0.5K (2K standard deviation). The mean deviations based on 167699 comparisons between CHAMP/SAC-C and ECMWF LRT parameters are (-2.1±37.1)hPa for pressure and (0.1±4.2)K for temperature. Comparisons of LRT pressure and temperature between CHAMP and nearby radiosondes (13230) resulted in (5.8±19.8)hPa and (-0.1±3.3)K, respectively. The comparisons between CHAMP/SAC-C and ECMWF show on average the largest differences in the vicinity of the jet streams with up to 700m in LRT altitude and 3K in LRT temperature, respectively. The CHAMP mission generates the first long-term RO data set. Other satellite missions will follow (GRACE, COSMIC, MetOp, TerraSAR-X, EQUARS) generating together some thousand temperature profiles daily

GPS radio occultation with CHAMP: monitoring of climate change parameters

International audienceThe Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) technique offers a valuable new data source for global and continuous monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere. Refractivity, temperature and water vapor profiles with high accuracy and vertical resolution can be derived from this method. The GPS RO technique requires no calibration, is not affected by clouds, aerosols or precipitation, and the occultations are almost uniformly distributed over the globe. In this paper the potential of GPS RO for monitoring of the temperature is demonstrated exemplarily for the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) region using GPS RO data from the German CHAMP (CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload) satellite mission. In addition, results of a 1DVAR retrieval scheme to derive tropospheric water vapor profiles using ECMWF data as background will be discussed. CHAMP RO data are available since 2001 with up to 200 high resolution temperature profiles per day. The temperature bias between CHAMP temperature profiles and radiosonde data as well as ECMWF analyses is less than 0.5 K between 300?30 hPa. The CHAMP RO experiment generates the first long-term RO data set. Other satellite missions will follow (GRACE, TerraSAR-X, COSMIC, METOP) generating some thousand profiles of atmospheric parameters daily

Citizens, bribery and the propensity to protest

It is widely assumed that the more one experiences corruption the more likely one is to want to protest about it. Yet empirical evidence illustrating this is thin on the ground. This paper fills that gap by focusing on the extent to which self-reported experience of bribery affects the willingness to engage in protests against corruption in Africa. We find that the more one experiences bribery the more one is likely to support anti-corruption protests. A further unexpected finding is that the personal experience of corruption also increases the willingness to rely on bribes to solve public administration problems

First results from the GPS atmosphere sounding experiment TOR aboard the TerraSAR-X satellite

GPS radio occultation events observed between 24 July and 17 November 2008 by the IGOR occultation receiver aboard the TerraSAR-X satellite are processed and analyzed. The comparison of 15 327 refractivity profiles with collocated ECMWF data yield a mean bias between zero and −0.30 % at altitudes between 5 and 30 km. Standard deviations decrease from about 1.4 % at 5 km to about 0.6 % at 10 km altitude, however, increase significantly in the upper stratosphere. At low latitudes mean biases and standard deviations are larger, in particular in the lower troposphere. The results are consistent with 15 159 refractivity observations collected during the same time period by the BlackJack receiver aboard GRACE-A and processed by GFZ's operational processing system. The main difference between the two occultation instruments is the implementation of open-loop signal tracking in the IGOR (TerraSAR-X) receiver which improves the tropospheric penetration depth in terms of ray height by about 2 km compared to the conventional closed-loop data acquired by BlackJack (GRACE-A)

Therapeutic and educational objectives in robot assisted play for children with autism

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326251This article is a methodological paper that describes the therapeutic and educational objectives that were identified during the design process of a robot aimed at robot assisted play. The work described in this paper is part of the IROMEC project (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions) that recognizes the important role of play in child development and targets children who are prevented from or inhibited in playing. The project investigates the role of an interactive, autonomous robotic toy in therapy and education for children with special needs. This paper specifically addresses the therapeutic and educational objectives related to children with autism. In recent years, robots have already been used to teach basic social interaction skills to children with autism. The added value of the IROMEC robot is that play scenarios have been developed taking children's specific strengths and needs into consideration and covering a wide range of objectives in children's development areas (sensory, communicational and interaction, motor, cognitive and social and emotional). The paper describes children's developmental areas and illustrates how different experiences and interactions with the IROMEC robot are designed to target objectives in these areas.Final Published versio