Temporal change of km-scale underwater sound speed structure and GNSS-A
positioning accuracy
Abstract
Underwater disturbances are the largest error source in GNSS-A seafloor
geodetic observation. In particular, the gradient of sound speed
structure directly affects the horizontal accuracy and needs to be
examined. Previous studies have not investigated its temporal change
component. In this paper, we verified the assumption that the underwater
gradient structure does not change significantly during GNSS-A
observation for several hours through applying a modified version of an
analysis software called GARPOS to actual data of SGO-A (provided by
Japan Coast Guard). Obtained results suggested that this assumption
holds at many observation data, and the positioning accuracy becomes
better. Some non-improved observation epochs were speculated to be
accompanied by structure changes for which this assumption was not
valid. It is suggested that the sound speed structure change during
observation will be an important research topic in GNSS-A.