Project - Balkan-Mediterranean Real Time Severe Weather Service

The present article describes the principal objectives, the methodology and the main activities of the research project BeRTISS (Balkan-Mediterranean Real Time Severe weather Service) which is funded by the European Territorial Cooperation Programme "Interreg V-B Balkan-Mediterranean 2014-2020". Electron density of the ionosphere and water vapor in the troposphere affect the propagation speed of the GNSS signals transmitted from satellites to the ground reference stations, causing signal propagation delay. Ionospheric delay can be easily removed whereas tropospheric delay, which comprises one of the most significant error sources in satellite signal transmission, should be calculated using surface pressure and temperature variables. Tropospheric delay allows the assessment of Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV). For the first time, BeRTISS real-time service will offer perpetual information for forecasting of PWV over Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus to the interested public by employing the GNSS derived tropospheric products.