Correcting GPS measurements for non-tidal loading

Abstract

Non-tidal loading (NTL) deforms the earth’s surface, adding variability to the coordinates of geodetic sites. Yet, according to the IERS Conventions, there are no recommended surface-mass change models to account for NTL deformation in geodetic position time series. We investigate the NTL signal recorded at 585 GPS stations at different frequency bands, from day to years, by comparing GPS estimated displacements to modeled environmental loading. We used up-to-date and high-resolution (both temporal and spatial) models to account for NTL induced by mass changes in the atmosphere, oceans, and continental hydrology. Vertical land motions variability is reduced on average by up to 20% when correcting the series for non-tidal atmospheric and oceanic loading, employing either barotropic or baroclinic ocean models. We then focus on characterizing the ocean response to air-pressure variations, and we observe that there are no significant differences at seasonal timescales between a barotropic ocean model forced by air pressure and winds and a more classical baroclinic ocean model forced by wind, heat and freshwater fluxes. However, any of these choices further reduces the variability by 5% compared to the classical static inverted barometer ocean response. The variability of the vertical coordinate changes is further reduced by an additional 5% by also correcting for continental hydrology loading, especially at seasonal periods. For horizontal coordinate changes, the variability is reduced by less than 5% after correcting for all studied surface-mass changes.