Addisu Hunegnaw

Impact of Limited Satellite Visibility on Estimates of Vertical Land Movements

The number of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites and their geometry directly affect the quality of positioning and derived satellite products. Accordingly, the International GNSS Service (IGS) recommends GNSS antennas to be installed away from natural and man-made surfaces and structures, which may affect the incoming signals through severe multipath or obstructions. Following these recommendations, continuous GNSS (cGNSS) stations are generally located in low multipath environments with minimal signal obstructions. However, some applications require GNSS antennas to be installed at specific locations in order to measure local processes. In support of sea level studies, cGNSS stations are established at or close to tide gauges in order to accurately monitor the local vertical land movements experienced by the sea level sensors. However, the environment at the tide gauge might not be optimal for GNSS observations due to the aforementioned station-specific effects, which may degrade the quality of coordinate solutions. This study investigates the impact of severe signal obstructions on long-term position time series for some selected stations. A masking profile from an actually obstructed site is extracted, simulated and applied to unobstructed IGS sites. To investigate these effects, we implemented a new feature called azimuth-dependent elevation masking in the Bernese GNSS Software version 5.2. We present our preliminary results on the use of this new feature to study the impact of different obstruction scenarios on long-term GNSS position time series and vertical land movement estimates. The results show that a certain obstruction, with the effect being highly dependent on its severity and azimuthal direction, affects all coordinate components with the effect being more significant for the Up component. Moreover, it causes changes in the rate estimates and increases the rate uncertainty with the effect being site-specific.

The King Edward Point Geodetic Observatory, South Georgia, South Atlantic Ocean

During February 2013 the King Edward Point (KEP) Geodetic Observatory was established in South Georgia, South Atlantic Ocean, through a University of Luxembourg funded research project and in collaboration with the United Kingdom National Oceanography Centre, British Antarctic Survey, and Unavco, Inc. Due to its remote location in the South Atlantic Ocean, as well as being one of few subaerial exposures of the Scotia tectonic plate, South Georgia Island has been a key location for a number of global monitoring networks, e.g. seismic, geomagnetic and oceanic. However, no permanent geodetic monitoring station has been established previously, despite the lack of observations from this region. In this study we will present an evaluation of the GNSS and meteorological observations from the KEP Geodetic Observatory for the period from 14 February to 31 December 2013. We calculate multipath and positioning statistics and compare these to those from IGS stations using equipment of the same type. The on-site meteorological data are compared to those from the nearby KEP meteorological station and the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis model, and the impact of these data sets on integrated water vapour estimates is evaluated. We discuss the installation in terms of its potential contributions to sea level observations using tide gauges and satellite altimetry, studies of tectonics, glacio-isostatic adjustment and atmospheric processes.

Status of TIGA Activities at the British Isles Continuous GNSS Facility and the University of Luxembourg

In 2013 the International GNSS Service (IGS) Ti-de Gauge Benchmark Monitoring (TIGA) Working Group started their reprocessing campaign which proposes to re-analyse all relevant GPS observations from 1995 to the end of 2012 in order to provide high quality estimates of vertical land motion for monitoring of sea level changes. The TIGA Working Group will also produce a combined solution from the individual TIGA Analysis Centres (TAC) contributions. The consortium of British Isles continuous GNSS Facility (BIGF) and the University of Luxembourg TAC (BLT) will contribute weekly minimally constrained SINEX solutions from its reprocessing using the Bernese GNSS Software (BSW) version 5.2 and the University of Luxembourg will also act as a TIGA Combination Centre (TCC). The BLT will generate two solutions, one based on BSW5.2 using a network double difference (DD) strategy and a second one based on BSW5.2 using a Precise Point Positioning (PPP) strategy. In the DD strategy we have included all IGb08 core stations in order to achieve a consistent reference frame implementation.