Analysis of heavy rainstorm in Beijing in 2023 based on GNSS observations

doi:10.11947/j.AGCS.2025.20230548

Abstract

Abstract:

By the end of July 2023, Beijing and its surrounding areas were severely impacted by an extreme rainstorm, which was the result of a combination of typhoon “Doksuri” “Khanun”, and geographic factors. The precipitable water vapor (PWV) is one of the key factors influencing rainfall, to explore its relationship with rainfall in different process of the rainstorm is of great significance for further establishment of a rainstorm warning model. In this study, 34 GNSS stations, 34 meteorological stations, 1 radiosonde station and ERA5 datasets in and around Beijing were utilized, the GNSS-PWV data with high accuracy from July 25th, 2023 to August 1st, 2023 were obtained using GAMIT 10.71. An improved interpolation algorithm has been proposed to retrieve gridded PWV data with a high spatiotemporal resolution. Then, the accuracy of the GNSS-PWV was evaluated from multiple perspectives using the radiosonde and ERA5 data as references. Finally, the relationship between the PWV variation and extreme rainfall and the relationship between tropospheric delay gradient and rainfall trend are analyzed from the perspective of time and space by the combination of the rainfall data from the meteorological stations. Results showed that the correlation coefficient between GNSS-PWV and RS-PWV was up to 0.99, the root mean square error (RMSE) and bias were about 0.52 mm and -0.52 mm, respectively. In the comparison with ERA5 data, the RMSE of GNSS-PWV is less than 6 mm and the bias range is -4~1.5 mm, the gridded PWV has a RMSE of about 4 mm and a bias about 1 mm. The spatiotemporal analysis shows that the PWV increases sharply before the occurrence of this rainstorm, keeps increasing during the rainstorm, and could not dissipate immediately after the end of the rainstorm. This phenomenon is related to the co-influence of “Doksuri” and “Khanun”. In addition, the tropospheric delay gradient at each station shows a consistent northeastward direction, which is consistent with the transport trend of PWV high value from southwest to northeast in space, and is consistent with the actual precipitation route.

Key words: GNSS meteorology, PWV, precipitation

CLC Number:

P228

Fei YANG, Yingying WANG, Zhicai LI, Boyao YU, Junli WU, Yunchang CAO, Shu ZHANG. Analysis of heavy rainstorm in Beijing in 2023 based on GNSS observations[J]. Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica, 2025, 54(1): 14-25.

Figures/Tables 9

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