Large Analysis of progress in improving the prediction accuracy of Earth's rotation parameters in Russian and international EOP services during last 16 years

Abstract

The paper analyzes the real predictions of the Earth's rotation parameters (ERP) made in the Russian State Service of the Earth's Rotation (the Center for processing and analyzing data on the parameters of the Earth's rotation of the Main Metrological Center of the State Service of Time, Frequency and Determination of the Parameters of the Earth's Rotation, SSTF) and the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) in 2007--2023. Daily predictions of the Earth's Pole coordinates and Universal Time were considered. In total, 6021 SSTF predictions and 5684 IERS predictions were processed. The change in median and maximum errors over time for prediction lengths of 1, 3, 7, 15 and 30 days was studied. As a result, it turned out that over the past 16 years there has not been a general steady trend towards a decrease in the error of ERP predictions in both centers, although such a decrease is clearly noticeable for certain types and lengths of the prediction. Moreover, in some cases, there is a tendency to worsen the accuracy of the prediction, especially for the maximum error of short-term predictions of Universal Time.