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Comparison of individual and combined zenith tropospheric delay estimations during CONT08 campaign

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Abstract

CONT campaigns are 2-week campaigns of continuous VLBI observations. The IERS working group on combination at the observation level uses these campaigns to study such combinations. In this work, combinations of DORIS, GPS, SLR, and VLBI technique measurements are studied during CONT08. We present different results concerning the use of common zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) during the combination. We compare the ZTD obtained separately using each individual technique data processing, the combined ZTD, and the ZTD derived from a meteorological model. This resulted in a high level of consistency between each of these ZTD at a sub-centimeter level, a consistency which especially depends on the number of observations per estimated ZTD and the humidity level in the troposphere. We noted that GPS provides the main information about the combined ZTD, the other techniques providing complementary information when a lack of GPS observations occurs.

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Notes

  1. Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales/Groupe de Recherche de Géodésie Spatiale.

  2. One million of GPS observations per week with 10-min sampling, 10 millions with 1-min sampling.

  3. Less than 6 h to process 1 day of GPS data with a 10-min sampling instead of more than 18 h with a 1-min sampling with our server, without taking into account the processing time of the combinations.

  4. Since VLBI observations are interferometric observations involving two stations, 11,000 observations actually correspond to about 5,500 signal receptions per site.

  5. This confidence level corresponds to \(|\frac{\mathrm{Mean}}{\mathrm{SEM}}|>1.96\) with SEM the standard error of the mean, Altman and Bland (2005).

  6. Software developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Richard Biancale and Jean-Charles Marty (CNES/GET) who provided us with the GINS-PC software and to Sylvain Loyer (CLS), Felix Perosanz (CNES/GET), Laurent Soudarin (CLS), Florent Deleflie (IMCCE), Frank Reinquin (CNES/GET), Geraldine Bourda, and Antoine Bellanger (Bordeaux Observatory) for their help with the GPS (resp. DORIS, SLR, and VLBI) processing. We also acknowledge the members of the IERS working group COL for fruitful discussions and CNES for financialsupport.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IGN, LAREG, Univ Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 5 rue Thomas Mann, 75205 , Paris Cedex 13, France

    A. Pollet, D. Coulot, O. Bock & S. Nahmani

  2. IMCCE, 61 Av de l’Observatoire, 75014 , Paris, France

    D. Coulot

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  1. A. Pollet
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  2. D. Coulot
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  4. S. Nahmani
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Correspondence to A. Pollet.

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Pollet, A., Coulot, D., Bock, O. et al. Comparison of individual and combined zenith tropospheric delay estimations during CONT08 campaign. J Geod 88, 1095–1112 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-014-0745-5

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