Swiss Meteorological Network Upgrades with Precision GNSS Positioning

As part of a major upgrade and renewal of the Swiss Metrological Network of weather stations, the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology, MeteoSwiss, is employing an Ashtech ProMark 500, smart GNSS receiver, to measure to centimetre-level accuracy the position of each of its more than 1,100 sensors located at 135 stations throughout the country. The enhanced accuracy of the instrument positions leads to an improvement in MeteoSwiss products, especially solar radiation measurement, by improving the horizon definition; and atmospheric pressure measurements by providing an accurate altitude.

“MeteoSwiss operates its network of 1,100 very accurate sensors to record a wide variety of meteorological measurements, including air pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall and radiation parameters.” explains Dr. Barbara Huguenin-Landl, Deputy Project Leader at SwissMetNet. “The sensors measure and broadcast their data, consisting of several thousands of parameters, every ten minutes to the central MeteoSwiss database. The data is among others used by MeteoSwiss to serve as an input to a high-precision numerical weather prediction system, COSMO, which generates regional and local forecast products for the complex Swiss topography.

The ProMark 500, smart GNSS receiver, is being used to determine the exact x, y and z coordinates of each sensor in the network to update and improve the geospatial information in the MeteoSwiss central database. To ensure the required centimetre accuracy, the ProMark 500 connects to the Swipos-GIS/GEO RTK network via GSM to receive RTK corrections.

Internet: www.toptec.ch and www.meteoswiss.ch