GPS DATA APPLICATIONS IN TECTONICS, HYDROLOGY, AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES

Through community requests and collaborations, UNAVCO and the geodetic community have developed a growing suite of data products, data download and exploration tools, and Google Earth kmz files applicable to multiple geoscience fields. This session focuses on data broadly accessible to geoscience researchers, general public, educators, and students and includes GPS data and 3-dimensional scanning data from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), and Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) methods.

UNAVCO, a National Science Foundation funded Earth Science Geodetic Facility, manages the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) with ~1100 GPS stations and analyzes an additional 600+ stations from other public networks. Data are processed to obtain daily positions and long-term velocities at each station. All data are open access and available through the UNAVCO archives. These data are well suited for studying of geophysical, hydrologic, glacial and atmospheric phenomena particularly when combined with supporting data from relevant fields.

GPS stations and other PBO instruments directly measure long-term tectonic motion, tracking surface deformation at time scales from seconds to minutes to days to years. Geophysical applications of the data include interseismic deformation, seismic waves, earthquake offsets, post-seismic deformation, slow slip, and volcanic inflation/deflation.

GPS instruments measure hydrologically driven deformation and can be compared to models of displacements derived from land surface models (LSM) to obtain loads in kg/m² for monthly snowpack, soil moisture, and total canopy water storage (vegetation). These models are available as data downloads and through community-developed map-viewing tools.

The radio signals transmitted by GPS satellites are further used to study the atmosphere and local conditions around the GPS site. Atmospheric data products include precipitable water vapor measurements available in map view (through NCAR), surface meteorological measurements at selected stations, vegetation height, and tropospheric models.

In this presentation, we provide descriptions and examples of the data products, applications, and online tools to explore, analyze, and download data.