Mesoscale GPS tomography applied to the 12 June 2002 convective initiation event of IHOP_2002

The time‐varying three‐dimensional water vapour field derived from mesoscale Global Positioning System (GPS) tomography data is used to describe the water vapour variability in relation to the dynamics of the atmosphere during convective initiation (CI). The paper presents the theoretical framework of GPS tomography at the mesoscale, including aspects related to the assimilation of independent data (e.g. water vapour profiles issued from meteorological balloon soundings). GPS tomography‐derived water vapour density retrievals are validated against lidar, the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer and radiosonde data, even if the short three‐day period of the study prevents conclusions about the real accuracy of the GPS tomography technique.

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