Tropospheric range error parameters: Further studies

Abstract

Improved parameters are presented for predicting the tropospheric effect on electromagnetic range measurements from surface meteorological data. Parameters are given for computing the dry component of the zenith radio range effect from surface pressure alone with an rms error of 1 to 2 mm, or the total range effect from the dry and wet components of the surface refractivity, N, and a two-part quartic profile model. The parameters were obtained from meteorological balloon data with improved procedures, including the conversion of the geopotential heights of the balloon data to actual or geometric heights before using the data. The revised values of the parameter k show more latitude variation than is accounted for by the variation of g. This excess variation of k indicates a small latitude variation in the mean molecular weight of air and yields information about the latitude-varying water vapor content of air.