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

向联合国志愿人员组织提供的这一合作赠款，一个由美国地质调查局支持的国家大地测量支持设施（NOD-0735156）和大气研究大学公司（UCAR），一个由美国地质调查局支持的管理国家大气研究设施中心（NCAR）的联合体，支持在泛加勒比地区开发一个板级综合大地测量和大气/区域气候观测系统的五年计划。 加勒比连续运行全球定位系统观测网的一个目标是增加50个新的半永久性纪念性、连续运行的全球定位卫星站，覆盖加勒比和加勒比邻国。COCONet的目标还要求整合加勒比地区多达50个现有站点的GPS数据。 在某些情况下，新的全球定位系统卫星站将与现有的验潮站设在同一地点，从而支持针对当前全球变暖而进行的海平面变化研究，并将与地面气象观测设备配合使用（Metpacks）在一个有大量地震、海啸、火山、热带风暴和飓风的复杂地质构造区域大幅扩大时空大地测量和大气观测基础设施，洪水和滑坡灾害。 COCONet将提供一个基准和气象观测骨干网络，COCONet的数据和数据产品将通过联合国志愿人员组织档案免费提供，用于广泛的基本构造和大气研究调查，并使观测能够直接用于促进了解、减轻和可能预测区域地质灾害。 COCONet数据可以帮助解决的一些具体问题包括：1）加勒比板块的刚性如何？2)沿加勒比板块活动断层的沿着速率是多少？3)在会聚的板块边界上应力是如何释放的？应力是如何通过板块边界传递的？以及4）我们如何才能更好地了解和评估加勒比和中美洲区域的灾害？ 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、加强和转向？ COCONet数据将通过EarthScope板块边界观测台数据管理系统流动，并可通过可上网查阅的联合国志愿人员组织数据档案库查阅。 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博尔德的PBO网络运营中心。 这些数据将由设在中央华盛顿大学和新墨西哥州理工学院的现有PBO全球定位系统分析中心和麻省理工学院的分析中心协调员处理成衍生的大地测量产品，包括组合的全球定位系统台站位置和速度估计数、简化的位置时间序列和多种格式的速度场估计数。 此外，UCAR将每30分钟通过观测卫星发射器和接收器之间路径长度上的GPS射频信号传播延迟，再加上同时进行的表面气压测量，来估计对流层可降水量（PV）。沿着路径长度。 PV观测结果将输入每天运行数次的业务数值天气模型。 该项目将使加勒比研究人员、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为科学和社会经济目的利用COCONet数据。 来自COCONet的实时数据将提供给全球导航卫星系统国际服务处，以帮助在地球仪现有实时数据流很少的区域加强全球定位系统观测，从而改进全球定位系统卫星轨道计算，并帮助完善国际地面参照基准。

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).