A mathematical model of lithosphere–atmosphere coupling for seismic events

Significant evidence of ionosphere disturbance in connection to intense seismic events have been detected since two decades. It is generally believed that the energy transfer can be due to Acoustic Gravity Waves (AGW) excited at ground level by the earthquakes. In spite of the statistical evidence of the detected perturbations, the coupling between lithosphere and atmosphere has not been so far properly explained by an accurate enough model. In this paper, for the first time, we show the result of an analytical-quantitative model that describes how the pressure and density disturbance is generated in the lower atmosphere by the ground motion associated to earthquakes. The direct comparison between observed and modelled vertical profiles of the atmospheric temperature shows the capability of the model to accurately reproduce, with an high statistical significance, the observed temperature fluctuations induced by strong earthquakes.

Initial Assessment of Galileo Triple-Frequency Ambiguity Resolution between Reference Stations in the Hong Kong Area

The European Global Navigation Satellite System Galileo is gradually deploying its constellation. In order to provide reliable navigation and position services, the effectiveness and reliability of ambiguity resolution between reference stations is necessary in network real-time kinematic (NRTK). The multifrequency signal of Galileo could much enhance the ambiguity resolution (AR) reliability and robustness. In this study, to exploit full advantage of this, the geometry-free (GF) TCAR and ionospheric-free (IF) triple-carrier ambiguity resolution (TCAR) methods were utilized in solving the ambiguity in the Hong Kong area, which is an ionosphere disturbance active area, and compared with each other. The IF TCAR method was then used to combine multi-systems to improve Galileo E1 AR performance, which is named as the combined IF (CIF) TCAR method. Three experiments were carried out in the Hong Kong area and the results showed that the Galileo-only system could fix ambiguities on all satellite pairs correctly and reliably by the IF TCAR method, while the GF TCAR method showed a weaker performance. The wide-lane (WL) convergence time of the IF TCAR method is improved by about 37.6%. The IF TCAR method with respect to the GF TCAR method could improve the WL accuracy by 21.6% and the E1 accuracy by 72.7%, respectively. Compared with GPS-only TCAR or Galileo-only TCAR, the ambiguity accuracy and the convergence time of the CIF TCAR method, which combines GPS and Galileo, could be improved by about 25.7% and 47.1%, respectively.

Research on Remote GPS Common-View Precise Time Transfer Based on Different Ionosphere Disturbances

Propagation path delays are a major error for the remote precise time transfer of common view; these path delays contain the ionosphere and troposphere impact, while the contributions of the ionosphere and the troposphere from common-view satellites to receivers on the ground tend to become uncorrelated when the distance between these receivers increases. In order to select the appropriate ionospheric correction method for common view under different distances between receivers, a detailed test using multi-source data under different ionosphere disturbances are carried out in this paper. Here, we choose three different ionosphere disturbance methods and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these methods for common-view time transfer and time comparison. At last, we put forward a suitable ionospheric correction method for different distances common view. The RMS shows that the method proposed for 3000 km remote common view can achieve 2.5 ns.

COMPENSATION OF THE IONOSPHERIC EFFECTS ON SAR INTERFEROGRAM BASED ON RANGE SPLIT-SPECTRUM AND AZIMUTH OFFSET METHODS – A CASE STUDY OF YUSHU EARTHQUAKE

InSAR technique can measure the surface deformation with the accuracy of centimeter-level or even millimeter and therefore has been widely used in the deformation monitoring associated with earthquakes, volcanoes, and other geologic process. However, ionospheric irregularities can lead to the wavy fringes in the low frequency SAR interferograms, which disturb the actual information of geophysical processes and thus put severe limitations on ground deformations measurements. In this paper, an application of two common methods, the range split-spectrum and azimuth offset methods are exploited to estimate the contributions of the ionosphere, with the aim to correct ionospheric effects in interferograms. Based on the theoretical analysis and experiment, a performance analysis is conducted to evaluate the efficiency of these two methods. The result indicates that both methods can mitigate the ionospheric effect in SAR interferograms and the range split-spectrum method is more precise than the other one. However, it is also found that the range split-spectrum is easily contaminated by the noise, and the achievable accuracy of the azimuth offset method is limited by the ambiguous integral constant, especially with the strong azimuth variations induced by the ionosphere disturbance.