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

这笔合作赠款提供给由EAR支持的国家大地测量支助基金(EAR-0735156)的UNAVCO公司和管理国家大气研究设施中心(NCAR)的大学大气研究公司(UCAR)，支持泛加勒比区域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发展。持续运作的加勒比全球定位系统观测网(CoCoNet)的一个目标是增加50个横跨多个加勒比和加勒比边界国家的半永久性、持续运作的全球定位卫星(CGPS)观测站。CoCoNet目标还要求整合在加勒比地区运营的多达50个现有站点的全球定位系统数据。在某些情况下，新的CGPS观测站将与现有的验潮仪设在同一地点，从而支持对应对当前全球变暖的海平面变化的研究，并将与地面气象观测设备(METPACK)配对，以在地震、海啸、火山、热带风暴和飓风、洪水和滑坡灾害严重的复杂构造区域大大扩展时空大地测量和大气观测基础设施。CoCoNet将提供一个骨干基准和气象观测网络，CoCoNet数据和数据产品将可通过联安办事处档案免费获得，以服务于广泛的基本构造和大气研究调查，并使直接相关的观测能够促进对区域地质灾害的理解、减轻甚至预测。CoCoNet数据可能有助于解决的一些具体问题包括：1)加勒比海板块有多硬？2)沿着连接加勒比海板块的活动断层的滑动速率是多少？3)汇聚的板块边界上的应力是如何释放的，以及应力是如何跨越板块边界转移的？4)我们如何更好地了解和评估加勒比和中美洲地区的危险？拟议的全球定位系统气象测定和对大气物理性质的地面测量可提出的大气问题包括：1)对流层水蒸气含量对海面温度变化的敏感度如何？2)加勒比地区可降水量的分布如何影响热带风暴和飓风的产生、加强和传播？CoCoNet数据将通过地球范围板块边界观测站(PBO)数据管理系统流动，并可通过可通过网络访问的联安部队数据档案获得。低延迟数据遥测将通过蜂窝调制解调器或VSAT卫星通信到达科罗拉多州博尔德市的PBO网络运营中心。这些数据将在中央华盛顿大学和新墨西哥理工学院的现有PBO GPS分析中心和麻省理工学院的分析中心被处理成衍生的大地测量产品，包括组合的GPS站点位置和速度估计，多种格式的简化位置时间序列和速度场估计。此外，UCAR将根据GPS射频信号沿卫星发射器和接收器之间路径长度的传播延迟以及同时进行的大气气压地面测量来估计每30分钟一次的对流层可降水量(PV)。PV观测将提供给每天运行几次的业务数值天气模式。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，目标是使这些国家能够将CoCoNet数据用于科学和社会经济目的。CoCoNet的实时数据将提供给国际全球导航卫星系统服务处(全球导航卫星系统服务处)，以帮助在现有实时数据流很少的全球定位系统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考框架。

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).