News

Scientists from IGG determined the high-frequency motion of the Earth pole on the basis of observations from 80 GNSS satellites and 100 ground stations

02-01-2021

Scientists from the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, UPWr and the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern in Switzerland have proven that GNSS observations from GPS, GLONASS and Galileo satellites are able to provide high-quality information on high-frequency changes in the Earth rotation with periods from several to several hours. Therefore, for the first time it was possible to determine the model of the sub-daily Earth polar motion using as many as 80 satellites: GPS, GLONASS and Galileo. All previous determinations of the empirical GNSS models were based on the GPS system, which caused problems due to exactly 2 revolutions of GPS satellites per day, translating into the risk of recognizing orbital errors of GPS satellites as pole movements.

A new method of integrating GNSS data from satellites with different revolution periods allows the development of independent empirical models describing changes in the Earth rotation caused by ocean tides. The very first model of sub-diurnal changes in the movement of the Earth pole which is free from most of the disadvantages of solutions based solely on the GPS system is now described by Zajdel et al. (2021). The model is based on 3 years of continuous observations from 100 ground GNSS stations located on all continents and recording data from 80 GNSS satellites.

Read more about the determination of high-frequency changes in the motion of the Earth Pole in the latest article in the Journal of Geodesy:

Zajdel, R., Sośnica, K., Bury, G. Dach, R., Prange, L., Kaźmierski, K. (2021) Sub-daily polar motion from GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. Journal of Geodesy 95, 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190 -020-01453-w