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A 10-Year Comparison of Water Levels Measured with a Geodetic GPS Receiver Versus a Conventional Tide GaugeA standard geodetic GPS receiver and a conventional Aquatrak tide gauge, collocated at Friday Harbor, Washington, are used to assess the quality of 10 years of water levels estimated from GPS sea surface reflections.The GPS results are improved by accounting for (tidal) motion of the reflecting sea surface and for signal propagation delay by the troposphere. The RMS error of individual GPS water level estimates is about 12 cm. Lower water levels are measured slightly more accurately than higher water levels. Forming daily mean sea levels reduces the RMS difference with the tide gauge data to approximately 2 cm. For monthly means, the RMS difference is 1.3 cm. The GPS elevations, of course, can be automatically placed into a well-defined terrestrial reference frame. Ocean tide coefficients, determined from both the GPS and tide gauge data, are in good agreement, with absolute differences below 1 cm for all constituents save K1 and S1. The latter constituent is especially anomalous, probably owing to daily temperature-induced errors in the Aquatrak tide gauge
Document ID
20170007840
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Larson, Kristine M.
(Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Ray, Richard D.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Williams, Simon D. P.
(National Oceanography Centre Liverpool, United Kingdom)
Date Acquired
August 18, 2017
Publication Date
January 24, 2017
Publication Information
Publication: Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Volume: 34
Issue: 2
ISSN: 0739-0572
e-ISSN: 1520-0426
Subject Category
Oceanography
Statistics And Probability
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN45569
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF AGS1449554
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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