The Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) technique is a satellite-based method for producing highly accurate vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature and pressure. RO profiles are used to monitor global climate trends, particularly in that region of the atmosphere that includes the lower stratosphere. Two data sets spanning 1995–1997 that were produced from the first RO satellite are highly accurate and can be used to assess global atmospheric models.

High-quality observations are critically important for monitoring the Earth’s changing climate. We provide information on the consistency and long-term stability of observations from GPS radio occultation (RO). We assess, for the first time, RO records from multiple RO missions and all major RO data providers. Our results quantify where RO can be used for reliable trend assessment and confirm its climate quality.

The interaction between the Earth's environment and the electrically charged gas known as the solar wind is highly complex and has been under study for decades. We use a universal principle of physics – the relativity principle – to gain physical insight into this interaction. We apply this principle to physical processes that occur during geomagnetic storms. We clarify how the solar wind ultimately causes currents to flow between the Earth's upper atmosphere and space.

This study cross-compares the 10-year record of GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) specific humidity product against independent databases (e.g., AIRS satellite, NASA/MERRA, and ERA-Interim). Our objective is to investigate the suitability of the GPS-RO humidity as a climate variable, which the science community could use in climate research. GPS-RO offers high vertical resolution, low sensitivity to clouds, and long-term stability making GPS-RO humidity a valuable complementary data set.

In this work we developed a method to obtain a time series named as AE* which is well correlated with the geomagnetic AE index. In this process, wavelet filtering is applied to interplanetary solar wind data from spacecrafts around the L1 libration point. This geomagnetic indicator AE* can be obtained well before the AE index release in its final form, and it can be used to feed models for geomagnetic effects, such as the relativistic electrons, giving forecasts ~ 1 to 2 days in advance.