Singular spectrum analysis for the time-variable seasonal signals from GPS in Yunnan Province

Abstract

Studying the seasonal deformation in GPS time series is important to interpreting geophysical contributors and identifying unmodeled and mismodeled seasonal signals. Traditional seasonal signal extraction used the least squares method, which models seasonal deformation as a constant seasonal amplitude and phase. However, the seasonal variations are not constant from year to year, and the seasonal amplitude and phase are time-variable. In order to obtain the time-variable seasonal signal in the GPS station coordinate time series, singular spectrum analysis (SSA) is conducted in this study. We firstly applied the SSA on simulated seasonal signals with different frequencies 1.00 cycle per year (cpy), 1.04 cpy and with time-variable amplitude are superimposed. It was found that SSA can successfully obtain the seasonal variations with different frequencies and with time-variable amplitude superimposed. Then, SSA is carried out on the GPS observations in Yunnan Province. The results show that the time-variable amplitude seasonal signals are ubiquitous in Yunnan Province, and the time-variable amplitude change in 2019 in the region is extracted, which is further explained by the soil moisture mass loading and atmospheric pressure loading. After removing the two loading effects, the SSA obtained modulated seasonal signals which contain the obvious seasonal variations at frequency of 1.046 cpy, it is close with the GPS draconitic year, 1.040 cpy. Hence, the time-variable amplitude changes in 2019 and the seasonal GPS draconitic year in the region could be discriminated successfully by SSA in Yunnan Province.