Using the Singular Spectrum Analysis for Investigation of Troposphere Parameters

TL;DR

This study applies Singular Spectrum Analysis to VLBI-derived troposphere delay data to identify trends and seasonal patterns, revealing nonlinear trends and variations in amplitude and phase over time.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates the use of SSA for analyzing troposphere delay time-series, enabling separation of harmonic and irregular components and detection of nonlinear trends.

Findings

Identification of trends and seasonal components in troposphere delays

Detection of nonlinear trends in zenith delay data

Analysis of amplitude and phase variations over time

Abstract

In this paper, the method of Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) is applied for investigation of the zenith troposphere delay time-series derived from VLBI observations. With the help of this method we can analyze the structure of time-series and separate the harmonic and irregular (trend) components. Combined IVS time-series of zenith wet and total troposphere delays obtained in IGG were used for analysis. For this study, several VLBI stations with the most long time series of troposphere zenith delays were selected, also taking into consideration the geographic region where the station is located. The investigations were carried out using SSA mode. As a result, trends and seasonal components (with annual and semiannual periods) were obtained for all the stations. Using of SSA enabled us to determine nonlinear trends in zenith delay, and also to study variations in the amplitude and the phase of the seasonal components with time.