G11B-0981
Removing atmosphere loading effect from GPS time series

Monday, 14 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Hadis Samadi Alinia, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, Kristy French Tiampo, University of Western Ontario, Department of Earth Sciences, London, ON, Canada, Sergey V Samsonov, Canada Center for Remote Sensing, Ottawa, ON, Canada and Pablo J Gonzalez, University of Leeds, COMET, School of Earth and Environment, Leeds, United Kingdom
Abstract:
The GPS time series of site position are contaminated by various sources of noise; in particular, the ionospheric and tropospheric path delays are significant [Gray et al., 2000; Meyer et al., 2006]. The GPS path delay in the ionosphere is largely dependent on the wave frequency whereas the delay in troposphere is dependent on the length of the travel path and therefore site elevation. Various approaches available for compensating ionosphere path delay cannot be used for removal of the tropospheric component. Quantifying the tropospheric delay plays an important role for determination of the vertical GPS component precision, as tropospheric parameters over a large distance have very little correlation with each other.

Several methods have been proposed for tropospheric signal elimination from GPS vertical time series. Here we utilize surface temperature fluctuations and seasonal variations in water vapour and air pressure data for various spatial and temporal profiles in order to more accurately remove the atmospheric path delay [Samsonov et al., 2014]. In this paper, we model the atmospheric path delay of vertical position time series by analyzing the signal in the frequency domain and study its dependency on topography in eastern Ontario for the time period from January 2008 to December 2012. Systematic dependency of amplitude of atmospheric path delay as a function of height and its temporal variations based on the development of a new, physics-based model relating tropospheric/atmospheric effects with topography and can help in determining the most accurate GPS position.The GPS time series of site position are contaminated by various sources of noise; in particular, the ionospheric and tropospheric path delays are significant [Gray et al., 2000; Meyer et al., 2006]. The GPS path delay in the ionosphere is largely dependent on the wave frequency whereas the delay in troposphere is dependent on the length of the travel path and therefore site elevation. Various approaches available for compensating ionosphere path delay cannot be used for removal of the tropospheric component. Quantifying the tropospheric delay plays an important role for determination of the vertical GPS component precision, as tropospheric parameters over a large distance have very little correlation with each other.

Several methods have been proposed for tropospheric signal elimination from GPS vertical time series. Here we utilize surface temperature fluctuations and seasonal variations in water vapour and air pressure data for various spatial and temporal profiles in order to more accurately remove the atmospheric path delay [Samsonov et al., 2014]. In this paper, we model the atmospheric path delay of vertical position time series by analyzing the signal in the frequency domain and study its dependency on topography in eastern Ontario for the time period from January 2008 to December 2012. Systematic dependency of amplitude of atmospheric path delay as a function of height and its temporal variations based on the development of a new, physics-based model relating tropospheric/atmospheric effects with topography and can help in determining the most accurate GPS position.

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