What Cause the Common-Mode Error in Array GPS Displacement Fields: Case
Study for Taiwan in Relation to Atmospheric Mass Loading
Abstract
We analyze forty-seven best-quality, ten-year-long daily Global
Positioning System (GPS) position time series of Taiwan, to understand
the origin of the GPS’s common-mode error (CME) whose seasonality in the
standard deviation evidences a meteorological origin. We employ the
efficient Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis to extract the CME as
the leading island-wide mode for all three components (whereas the
second mode relates to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation). We find that
the CME correlates well with the acquired variations in the atmospheric
mass loading (AML) displacement field for Taiwan courtesy of NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center for the vertical component with high
coherence around 11-14 cycles per year. Further regression analysis
shows that up to 90% of the non-seasonal AML displacements in Taiwan
are evident in the CME variations.