Abstract: The tropopause has a complex structure and some interference information may exist in high-resolution global positioning system (GPS)/low earth-orbiting (LEO) radio occultation (RO) data. The position of the tropopause cannot be accurately determined using traditional cold point tropopause (CPT) and lapse rate tropopause (LRT) algorithms. In this paper, an integrative algorithm is developed to determinate tropopause parameters. The algorithm is applied to GPS/COSMIC RO data to obtain a global distribution of the height and temperature of the tropopause. This algorithm improves the utilization rate of GPS/LEO RO data by 30% compared with that from the traditional CPT method. The rationality and reliability of GPS/LEO RO data in probing the Earth’s atmosphere are verified by our study of the tropopause using COSMIC data.

Key words: tropopause, height, temperature, integrative algorithm