Dissemination of critical atmospheric conditions within global and regional navigation satellite systems

1. An apparatus for a regional or global navigation satellite system comprising:

a system for receiving information from the navigation satellite system, said information including (1) information which does not include information representative of critical atmospheric conditions, and (2) information representative of atmospheric conditions, including information representative of critical atmospheric conditions; and

an indicator for informing or alarming a user, when critical atmospheric conditions occur, that critical atmospheric conditions are occurring.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

said information which does not include information representative of critical atmospheric conditions comprises ranging codes and navigation data.

3. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the system for receiving information from the navigation satellite system for providing said information representative of atmospheric conditions includes a monitoring network for providing said information representative of atmospheric conditions.

4. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the system for receiving information from the navigation satellite system for providing said information representative of atmospheric conditions includes direct links to providers of global and/or regional-scale numerical weather models and products.

5. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the system for receiving information from the navigation satellite system for providing said information representative of atmospheric conditions includes (1) a monitoring network for providing said information representative of atmospheric conditions and (2) direct links to providers of global and/or regional-scale numerical weather models and products.

6. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the apparatus is part of a receiver of a user of a user segment for providing said information representative of atmospheric conditions to said user.

7. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the atmospheric information comprises information about locations in a service area for which a specific service is currently not available due to critical atmospheric conditions.

8. An apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein:

fragmentation of the service area into atmospheric related sub-areas is optimized with respect to an available spare message space.

9. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the atmospheric information is processed such that a user-location dependent set of scale parameters is estimated.

10. An apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein:

only the set of scale parameters of the specific locations are disseminated to the user.

11. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the atmospheric information comprises information about approximate locations of maxima and/or minima in a pressure measured on an Earth surface are distributed together with the pressure and the size of the deviation from the standard range of pressure variations.

12. An apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

the atmospheric information comprises information about approximate locations of maxima and/or minima in atmospheric water vapor on an Earth surface are distributed together with the water vapor and a deviation size from a standard range of water vapor variations.

13. A process for a regional or global navigation satellite system (GNSS), said process comprising:

determining atmospheric information;

disseminating the atmospheric information to the satellites of the GNSS;

disseminating the atmospheric information to receivers of the GNSS;

informing a user of the receiver about the atmospheric information; and

alarming the user of the receiver about critical atmospheric conditions when such conditions occur.

14. A process according to claim 13 , wherein:

the atmospheric information comprises information to inform about locations in the service area for which a specific service is currently not available due to critical atmospheric conditions.

15. A process according to claim 13 , wherein:

the atmospheric information is processed such that a user-location dependent set of scale parameters is estimated.

16. A process according to claim 13 , wherein:

the atmospheric information comprises approximate locations of maxima and/or minima in pressure measured on an Earth surface together with pressure and a deviation size from a standard range of pressure variations.

17. A process according to claim 13 , wherein:

the atmospheric information comprises approximate locations of maxima and/or minima in atmospheric water vapor on an Earth surface are distributed together with the water vapor and a deviation size from a standard range of water vapor variations.