Evaluation of Tidal Effect in Long-Strip DInSAR Measurements Based on GPS Network and Tidal Models

Abstract

A long-strip differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) measurement based on multi-frame image mosaicking is currently the realizable approach to measure large-scale ground deformation. As the spatial range of the mosaicked images increases, the nonlinear variation of ground ocean tidal loading (OTL) displacements is more significant, and using plane fitting to remove the large-scale errors will produce large tidal displacement residuals in a region with a complex coastline. To conveniently evaluate the ground tidal effect on mosaic DInSAR interferograms along the west coast of the U.S., a three-dimensional ground OTL displacements grid is generated by integrating tidal constituents’ estimation of the GPS reference station network and global/regional ocean tidal models. Meanwhile, a solid earth tide (SET) model based on IERS conventions is used to estimate the high-precision SET displacements. Experimental results show that the OTL and SET in a long-strip interferogram can reach 77.5 mm, which corresponds to a 19.3% displacement component. Furthermore, the traditional bilinear ramp fitting methods will cause 7.2~20.3 mm residual tidal displacement in the mosaicked interferograms, and the integrated tidal constituents displacements calculation method can accurately eliminate the tendency of tidal displacement in the long-strip interferograms.