Impact of Ocean Tides Loading on Precise Point Positioning Based on FES2004 Model

Abstract Precise Point Positioning (PPP) technique as an absolute positioning method requires modeling of effects that influence observations. One of the effects is a displacement of the measurement location due to ocean mass gravitational attraction - ocean tides loading (OTL). The model recommended by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) is FES2004. The paper focuses on impact of applying the particular OTL model on PPP processing. The analysis is based on processing of observations from 24 globally distributed permanent stations and time span of 50 days. The analysis bases on processing intervals from 1 to 24 hours. In addition, the amplitudes of the loads in Poland are evaluated. The OTL model is location dependent, thus the importance of applying this model depends on the location environment. As the PPP is an absolute method, the loads cumulate and transfer nearly directly to the positioning solution. Consequently, for short observation intervals and small loads the application of the model does not play an important role. For the analysed station with high amplitudes of the loads the relative and absolute improvement, of the solution was the highest for height component. By applying the model, the solution improved by 19% or 7.3 mm (as for RMS and 8 hour interval). The distinct improvement for convergence exists for vertical component and threshold below 5 cm. For Poland the vertical component loads were about 5 times smaller and the highest improvement for the analysed station was 3.7% for 4 hour interval and vertical component.