A study of smoothed TEC precision inferred from GPS measurements

Abstract

The availability of a large amount of TEC data derived from dual frequency GPS measurements observed by GPS reference networks provides a great opportunity for ionosphere studies. In order to obtain better accuracy for the derived TEC, a data smoothing technique is usually employed to take advantage of both code pseudorange and carrier phase GPS measurements. The precision of TEC data therefore is dependent on the smoothing approach. However little work has been done to evaluate the precision of the smoothed TEC data obtained from different smoothing approaches. This investigation examines the properties of two popularly used smoothing approaches and develops the closed-form formulas for estimating the precision of the smoothed TEC data. In addition, a previously proposed approximate formula for estimating TEC precision is also evaluated against its closed-form formula developed in this paper. The TEC precisions derived from the closed-form precision estimation formulas for approaches I and II are analyzed in a numerical test. The results suggest that approach II outperforms approach I and the precision of TEC data smoothed by approach II is higher than approach I. For approach I, a numerical test is also conducted to compare the precision difference between the closed-form and approximate formulas for estimating TEC precision. The comparison indicates that TEC derived from the closed-form formula have better precisions than the approximate formula. Analysis also reminds users that extra cautions should be taken when using the approximate formula in order to avoid the precision divergence phenomenon. Copyright © The Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences (SGEPSS); The Seismological Society of Japan; The Volcanological Society of Japan; The Geodetic Society of Japan; The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences; TERRAPUB.