Collaborative Instrumentation: COCONet (Continuously Operating Caribbean GPS Observational Network) An Infrastructure Proposal for a Multi-hazard Tectonic and Weather Observatory

这一合作赠款将提供给由EAR支持的国家大地测量支持设施（EAR-0735156）和由AGS支持的管理国家大气研究设施中心（NCAR）的大学大气研究公司（UCAR），支持在泛加勒比地区开发一个板块尺度综合大地测量和大气/区域气候观测系统的五年计划。持续运行的加勒比GPS观测网（COCONet）的一个目标是在多个加勒比和加勒比周边国家增加50个新的半永久性纪念碑，持续运行的全球定位卫星（cGPS）站。椰子网的目标还要求整合加勒比地区多达50个现有台站的GPS数据。在某些情况下，新的cGPS台站将与现有的潮汐计同址，从而支持应对当前全球变暖的海平面变化研究，并将与地面气象观测设备（Metpacks）配合使用，在构造复杂、地震、海啸、火山、热带风暴和飓风、洪水和滑坡灾害严重的地区，显著扩大时空大地测量和大气观测基础设施。椰子网将提供一个主要的基准和气象观测网络，椰子网的数据和数据产品将通过联阿援助团的档案免费提供，为广泛的基本构造和大气研究调查提供服务，并使观测结果与促进了解、减轻甚至可能预测区域地质灾害具有直接相关性。椰子网数据可以帮助解决的一些具体问题包括：1)加勒比板块有多坚硬？2)沿加勒比海板块活动断层的滑动速率是多少？3)在收敛的板块边界处应力是如何释放的，应力又是如何跨板块边界传递的；4)我们如何更好地了解和评估加勒比和中美洲地区的灾害？通过拟议的GPS气象测定和大气物理性质的地面测量可以提出的大气问题包括：1)对流层水汽含量对海面温度变化的敏感程度如何？2)整个加勒比地区可降水量的分布如何影响热带风暴和飓风的发生、增强和矢量？椰子网数据将通过地球镜板块边界观测站（PBO）数据管理系统传输，并可通过联安援助团的网络数据档案获得。低延迟数据遥测将通过蜂窝调制解调器或通过VSAT卫星通信到位于科罗拉多州博尔德的PBO网络操作中心。这些数据将在中央华盛顿大学和新墨西哥理工大学现有的PBO GPS分析中心以及麻省理工学院的分析中心协调员处理成衍生大地测量产品，包括组合GPS站位置和速度估计，简化位置时间序列和多种格式的速度场估计。此外，UCAR将通过观测卫星发射器和接收器之间沿路径长度的GPS射频信号传播延迟，以及同时进行的地面气压测量，每30分钟估算对流层可降水量（PV）。PV观测将输入每天运行几次的数值天气模式。该项目将使加勒比地区的研究人员、他们的学生和政府机构代表参与进来，目的是使这些国家能够利用椰子网的数据用于科学和社会经济目的。来自COCONet的实时数据将提供给国际GNSS服务（IGS），以帮助在全球现有实时数据流很少的地区进行密集的GPS观测，从而改进GPS卫星轨道计算并帮助改进国际地面参考框架（ITRF）。

This collaborative grant to UNAVCO, Inc., an EAR supported national geodetic support Facility (EAR-0735156), and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), an AGS supported consortium that manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research Facilities (NCAR), supports a five year planned development of a plate-scale integrated geodetic and atmospheric/regional climate observational system in the pan-Caribbean region. A goal of the Continuously Operating Caribbean GPS Observational Network (COCONet) is to add 50 new semi-permanently monumented, continuously operating, Global Positioning Satellite (cGPS) stations spanning multiple Caribbean and Caribbean bordering nations. COCONet goals also call for the integration of GPS data from up to 50 existing stations operating in the Caribbean. The new cGPS stations will, in some cases, be co-located with existing tide gauges, thus supporting studies of sea level change in response to current global warming, and will be mated with surface meteorological observational equipment (Metpacks) to significantly expand spatiotemporal geodetic and atmospheric observational infrastructure in a region of complex tectonics with substantial earthquake, tsunami, volcanic, tropical storm and hurricane, flooding and landslide hazards. COCONet will provide a backbone fiducial and meteorologic observational network and COCONet data and data products that will be freely available through the UNAVCO archive will be available to serve a broad range of basic tectonic and atmospheric research investigations and enable observations of immediate relevance for advancing understanding, mitigating and perhaps predicting regional geohazards. Some specific questions that COCONet data could help to address include: 1) How rigid is the Caribbean plate?; 2) What are the slip rates along active faults that bound the Caribbean plate?; 3) How is stress released at convergent plate boundaries and how is stress transferred across plate boundaries?; and 4) How can we better understand and assess hazards in the Caribbean and Central American regions? Atmospheric questions that could be advanced by proposed GPS meteorological determinations and surface measurements of atmospheric physical properties include: 1) How sensitive is tropospheric water vapor content to changes in sea surface temperatures?; and 2) How does the distribution of precipitable water vapor across the Caribbean region influence the genesis, intensification and vectoring of tropical storms and hurricanes? COCONet data will flow via the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) data management system and be available via the Web-accessible UNAVCO data archive. Low-latency data telemetry will be via cellular modem or through VSAT satellite communications to the PBO Network Operations Center in Boulder, Colorado. These data will be processed into derived geodetic products, including combined GPS station position and velocity estimates, simplified position time series and velocity field estimates in multiple formats, at the existing PBO GPS Analysis Centers at Central Washington University and New Mexico Tech and the Analysis Center Coordinator at MIT. In addition, UCAR will estimate tropospheric precipitable water vapor (PV) every 30 minutes from observations of GPS radio frequency signal propagation delays along the path length between the satellite transmitter and the receiver coupled with concurrent surface measurement of barometric pressure. The PV observations will feed into operational numerical weather models run several times per day. The project will engage Caribbean researchers, their students and governmental agency representatives with the goal of empowering these nations to utilize COCONet data for both scientific and socioeconomic purposes. Real-time data from COCONet will be made available to the International GNSS Service (IGS) to help densify GPS observations in a region of the globe with few existing real-time data streams and thereby improve GPS satellite orbit calculations and help to refine the international terrestrial reference frame (ITRF).