Effects of Atmospheric Tide Loading on GPS Coordinate Time Series

Loading of the Earth’s crust due to variations in global atmospheric pressure can displace the position of geodetic stations. However, the station displacements induced by the diurnal and semidiurnal atmospheric tides (S1-S2) are often neglected during Global Positioning System (GPS) processing. We first studied the magnitudes of S1-S2 deformation in the Earth’s center of mass (CM) frame and compared the global S1-S2 grid models provided by the Global Geophysical Fluid Center (GGFC) and the Vienna Mapping Function (VMF) data server. The magnitude of S1-S2 tidal displacement can reach 1.5 mm in the Up component at low latitudes, approximately three times that of the horizontal components. The most significant difference between the GGFC and VMF grid models lies in the phase of S2 in the horizontal components, with phase discrepancies of up to 180° observed at some stations. To investigate the effects of S1-S2 corrections on GPS coordinates, we then processed GPS data from 108 International GNSS Service (IGS) stations using the precise point positioning (PPP) method in two processing strategies, with and without the S1-S2 correction. We observed that the effects of S1-S2 on daily GPS coordinates are generally at the sub-millimeter level, with maximum root mean square (RMS) coordinate differences of 0.18, 0.08, and 0.51 mm in the East, North, and Up components, respectively. We confirmed that part of the GPS draconitic periodic signals was induced by unmodeled S1-S2 loading deformation, with the amplitudes of the first two draconitic harmonics induced by atmospheric tide loading reaching 0.2 mm in the Up component. Moreover, we recommend using the GGFC grid model for S1-S2 corrections in GPS data processing, as it reduced the weighted RMS of coordinate residuals for 45.37%, 46.30%, and 53.70% of stations in the East, North, and Up components, respectively, compared with 39.81%, 44.44%, and 50.00% for the VMF grid model. The effects of S1-S2 on linear velocities are very limited and remain within the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) requirements for the future terrestrial reference frame at millimeter level.