Abstract: The vertical inhomogeneous distribution of the atmospheric medium can cause the refraction of propagating electromagnetic waves. In particular, the troposphere and ionosphere can lead to the delay and path bending of electromagnetic wave propagation, and thus cause errors of the measured range and angle for the ground-based space-target surveillance radar. In this paper, the model of the atmospheric refraction error is established based on the ray-tracing method. The accurate expression of the measured range and angle errors with regard to the vertical distribution of atmospheric refraction index is derived, and the principle and procedure for correcting the atmospheric refraction error of ground-based space-target monitoring radar is described in detail, compared with the traditional error approximation model and correction method, the proposed error model is more accurate and the correction method is more effective. Based on the tropospheric and ionospheric models, the curve of vertically distributed characteristics of the atmospheric refraction index was calculated, and the numerical simulation of the atmospheric refraction error was carried out. The results show that the proposed method in this paper has higher error compensation accuracy and more robust performance at different intervals of atmospheric stratification, and the performance advantages are more remarkable in the case of low elevation.