The velocities of the Global Positioning System (GPS) stations are widely employed for numerous geodynamical studies. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reliability of station velocities and to draw reader’s attention that for proper estimates of velocity, we need to consider the optimal character of noise. We focus on a set of 115 European GPS stations which contributed to the newest release of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), i.e. ITRF2014. Based on stacked Power Spectral Densities (PSDs), we show that amplitudes o f seasonal signals are significant for nine harmonics of tropical year (365.25 days) and two harmonics of draconitic year (351.60 days). The amplitudes of tropical annual signal fall between 0.1-8.4 mm and are much higher for vertical component than for horizontal. Draconitic annual signal reaches the maximum amplitudes of 1.2 and 0.9 mm for North and East, respectively, whereas is slightly higher for the Up component with a maximum of 3.1 mm. We performed a noise analysis with Maximum Like lihood Estimation (MLE) and found that stations in Central and Northern Europe are characterized by spectral index between flicker and random-walk noise, while stations in Southern and Western Europe: between white and flicker noise. Both amplitudes and spectral indices of power-law noise show a spatial correlation for Up component. We compared the uncertainties of velocities derived in this study with a combination of power-law and white noises to the ones offici ally released in the ITRF2014 with a pure white noise. A ratio of the two estimates is larger than 10 for 13 % and 30 % of stations in horizontal and vertical direction, respectively with medians of 6 and 7. The large differences support the fact that at the velocity determination the proper noise characteristic should be taken into account to avoid any mislead interpretation., Anna Klos and Janusz Bogusz., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
We estimated the common seasonal signal (annual oscillation) included in the Global Positioning System (GPS) vertical position time series by using Multichannel Singular Spectrum Analysis (MSSA). We employed time series from 24 International GNSS Service (IGS) stations located in Europe which contributed to the newest ITRF 2014 (International Terrestrial Reference Frame). The MSSA method has an advantage over the traditional modelling of seasonal signals by the Least-Squares Estimation (LSE) and Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) approaches because it can extract time-varying and common seasonal oscillations for stations located in the considered area. Having estimated the annual curve with LSE, we may make a misfit of 3 mm when a peak-to-peak variations of seasonal si gnals are to be estimated due to the time-variability of seasonal signal. A variance of data modelled as annual signal with SSA and MSSA differs of 3 % at average what proves that the MSSA-curves contain only time-varying and common seasonal signal and leave the station-specific part, local phenomena and power-law noise intact. In contrast to MSSA, these effects are modelled by SSA. The differences in spectral indices of power-law noise between MSSA and LSE esti mated with Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) are closer to zero than the ones between SSA and LSE, which means that MSSA curves do not contain site-specific noise as much as the SSA curves do., Marta Gruszczynska, Anna Klos, Severine Rosat and Janusz Bogusz., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
Presently the determination of the velocity field in the global reference frame is possible by using different space techniques and dense terrestrial networks from global to local and regional scales. However, the reliability of such determinations is strongly limited by the restricted number of unmodeled effects. Some of them are periodic (atmospheric or hydrological effects), some instantaneous (natural or man-made seismicity ) or seasons-related (snow cover, freezing). This elaboration deals with the unmodeled effects observed in the ASG-EUPOS (Polish Active Geodetic Network) time series. The whole network consists of over 130 permanent GNSS sites with different levels of stability. The paper presents the analysis of 3-year’s time-series of geodetic coordinates (in the topocentric projection) in order to obtain best-possible local velocity field. On the example of the Sudeten region, where 19 sites are located, the possible effects on the decrease in reliability of the velocity field determination are described. Finally the local velocity field in ITRF and ETRF frames are presented., Janusz Bogusz, Mariusz Figurski, Bernard Kontny and Piotr Grzempowski., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy