[1] The accuracy of Global Positioning System (GPS) time series is degraded by the presence of offsets. To assess the effectiveness of methods that detect and remove these offsets, we designed and managed the Detection of Offsets in GPS Experiment. We simulated time series that mimicked realistic GPS data consisting of a velocity component, offsets, white and flicker noises (1/f spectrum noises) composed in an additive model. The data set was made available to the GPS analysis community without revealing the offsets, and several groups conducted blind tests with a range of detection approaches. The results show that, at present, manual methods (where offsets are hand picked) almost always give better results than automated or semi-automated methods (two automated methods give quite similar velocity bias as the best manual solutions). For instance, the fifth percentile range (5% to 95%) in velocity bias for automated approaches is equal to 4.2 mm/year (most commonly˙0.4 mm/yr from the truth), whereas it is equal to 1.8 mm/yr for the manual solutions (most commonly 0.2 mm/yr from the truth). The magnitude of offsets detectable by manual solutions is smaller than for automated solutions, with the smallest detectable offset for the best manual and automatic solutions equal to 5 mm and 8 mm, respectively. Assuming the simulated time series noise levels are representative of real GPS time series, robust geophysical interpretation of individual site velocities lower than 0.2-0.4 mm/yr is therefore certainly not robust, although a limit of nearer 1 mm/yr would be a more conservative choice. Further work to improve offset detection in GPS coordinates time series is required before we can routinely interpret sub-mm/yr velocities for single GPS stations.

Integer ambiguity resolution at a single receiver can be implemented by applying improved satellite products where the fractional-cycle biases (FCBs) have been separated from the integer ambiguities in a network solution. One method to achieve these products is to estimate the FCBs by averaging the fractional parts of the float ambiguity estimates, and the other is to estimate the integer-recovery clocks (IRCs) by fixing the undifferenced ambiguities to integers in advance. In this paper, we theoretically prove the equivalence of the ambiguity-fixed position estimates d from these two methods by assuming that the F Bs ar hard are-dependent and only they are assimilated into the clocks and ambiguities. To ify is equivalence we implement both methods in the PANDA (Position and Navigation Data Analyst) software to process one year of GPS data from a global network of about 350 stations. The mean biases between all daily position estimates derived from these two methods are only 0.2, 0.1 and 0.0 mm, whereas the standard deviations of all position differences are only 1.3, 0.8 and 2.0 mm for the East, North and Up components, respectively. Moreover, the differences of the position repeatabilities are below 0.2 mm on average for all three components. The RMS of the position estimates minus those from the IGS weekly ons for the former method differs by below 0.1 mm on vera e for each component from that for the latter method. Therefore, considering th cogned millimeter-evel precision of current GPS-derived daily positions, these statistics empirically demonstrate the theoretical equivalence of the ambiguity-fixed position estimates derived from these two methods. In practice, we note that the former method is compatible with current official clock-generation methods, whereas the latter method is not, but can potentially lead to slightly better positioning quality.

SUMMARY This paper presents estimates of rates of mean sea level (MSL) change around the UK, based on a larger tide gauge data set and more accurate analysis methods than have been employed so far. The spatial variation of the trend in MSL is found to be similar to that inferred from geological information and from advanced geodetic techniques, which is a similar conclusion to that arrived at in the previous studies. The tide gauge MSL trends for 1901 onwards are estimated to be 1.4 ± 0.2 mm yr−1 larger than those inferred from geology or geodetic methods, suggesting a regional sea level rise of climate change origin several one‐tenths of mm per year lower than global estimates for the 20th century. However, UK MSL change cannot be described in terms of a simple linear increase alone but includes variations on interannual and decadal timescales. The possible sources of variation in a ‘UK sea level index’ are explored. Air pressure is clearly one such possible source but its direct local forcing through the ‘inverse barometer’ accounts for only one‐third of the observed variability. A number of larger scale atmospheric and ocean processes must also play important roles, but modelling them satisfactorily and separating the individual contributions present a major challenge. As regards future regional UK sea level changes, we conclude that there is no basis for major modification to existing projections for the 2080s included in the 2002 UK Climate Impacts Programme studies.

Abstract:Integer ambiguity resolution at a single station can be achieved by introducing predetermined uncalibrated phase delays (UPDs) into the float ambiguity estimates of precise point positioning (PPP). This integer resolution technique has the potential of leading to a PPP-RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) model where PPP provides rapid convergence to a reliable centimeter-level positioning accuracy based on an RTK reference network. Nonetheless, implementing this model is technically subject to how rapidly we can fix wide-lane ambiguities, stabilize narrow-lane UPD estimates, and achieve the first ambiguity-fixed solution. To investigate these issues, we used seven days of 1-Hz sampling GPS data at 91 stations across Europe. We find that at least 10 minutes of observations are required for most receiver types to reliably fix about 90% of wide-lane ambiguities corresponding to high elevations, and over 20 minutes to fix about 90% of those corresponding to low elevations. Moreover, several tens of minutes are usually required for a regional network before a narrow-lane UPD estimate stabilizes to an accuracy of far better than 0.1 cycles. Finally, for hourly data, ambiguity resolution can significantly improve the accuracy of epoch-wise position estimates from 13.7, 7.1 and 11.4 cm to 0.8, 0.9 and 2.5 cm for the East, North and Up components, respectively, but a few tens of minutes is required to achieve the first ambiguity-fixed solution. Therefore, from the timeliness aspect, our PPP-RTK model currently cannot satisfy the critical requirement of instantaneous precise positioning where ambiguity-fixed solutions have to be achieved within at most a few seconds. However, this model can still be potentially applied to some nearreal-time remote sensing applications, such as the GPS meteorology.

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) has become a recognized and powerful tool for scientific analysis of Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements. Until recently, ambiguity resolution at a single station has been considered difficult, due to the non-integer uncalibrated hardware delays (UHD) originating in receivers and satellites. Fortunately, recent studies show that if these UHD can be determined precisely with a network in advance, then ambiguity resolution at a single station is possible. In this study, the method proposed by Ge et al (2007) is adopted with a refinement in which the fractional parts of single-difference narrow-lane UHD for a satellite pair are determined within each full pass over a regional network. This study uses the European Reference Frame Permanent Network (EPN) to determine these UHD from Day 245 to 251 in 2007, and 27 IGS stations inside and outside the EPN are used to conduct ambiguity resolution in hourly PPP. It is found that the total hourly position accuracy is improved from 3.8 cm, 1.5 cm and 2.8 cm to 0.5 cm, 0.5 cm and 1.4 cm in East, North and Up, respectively, for the stations inside the EPN. For the stations outside the EPN, some of which are even over 2000 km away from the EPN, their total hourly East, North and Up position accuracies still achieve 0.6 cm, 0.6 cm and 2.0 cm, respectively, when the EPN-based UHD are applied to the ambiguity resolution at these stations. Therefore, it is feasible and beneficial for the operators of GPS networks, such as the providers of PPP-based online services, to provide these UHD estimates as an additional product to allow users to conduct ambiguity resolution in PPP.