Abstract. We use statistical analyses of synthetic position time series to estimate the potential precision of GPS velocities. The synthetic series represent the standard range of noise, seasonal, and position offset characteristics, leaving aside extreme values. This analysis is combined with a new simple method for automatic offset detection that allows an automatic treatment of the massive dataset. Colored noise and the presence of offsets are the primary contributor to velocity variability. However, regression tree analyses show that the main factors controlling the velocity precision are first the duration of the series, followed by the presence of offsets and the noise (dispersion and spectral index). Our analysis allows us to propose guidelines, which can be applied to actual GPS data, that constrain the velocity accuracies (expressed as 95 % confidence limits) based on simple parameters: (1) Series durations over 8.0 years result in high velocity accuracies in the horizontal (0.2 mm yr−1) and vertical (0.5 mm yr−1); (2) Series durations of less than 4.5 years cannot be used for high-precision studies since the horizontal accuracy is insufficient (over 1.0 mm yr−1); (3) Series of intermediate durations (4.5–8.0 years) are associated with an intermediate horizontal accuracy (0.6 mm yr-1) and a poor vertical one (1.3 mm yr−1), unless they comprise no offset. Our results suggest that very long series durations (over 15–20 years) do not ensure a better accuracy compare to series of 8–10 years, due to the noise amplitude following a power-law dependency on the frequency. Thus, better characterizations of long-period GPS noise and pluri-annual environmental loads are critical to further improve GPS velocity precisions.
Effect of removing the common mode errors on linear regression analysis of noise amplitudes in position time series of a regional GPS network & a case study of GPS stations in Southern California