High resolution mapping of Earth tide response based on GPS data in Japan

We observe the Earth tidal fields at diurnal and semi-diurnal periods using Kinematic Precise Point Positioning (KPPP) GPS analysis. Our KPPP GPS solutions compare well with super-conducting gravimeter (SG) observations and a theoretical Earth tidal model, that includes both ocean tide loading model and body tides. We make a high resolution map of the observed Earth tidal response fields using the Japanese GEONET GPS network which consists of 1200 sites. We find that: (1) the average phase of GPS data lags 0.11 ± 0.04° from our theoretical Earth tidal model, (2) the average amplitude ratio between GPS and the theoretical Earth tidal model is 1.007 ± 0.003, (3) the amplitude in the Kyushu district is about 1.0–1.5 ± 0.3% larger than in the Hokkaido district, and (4) the amplitude at the Japan Sea side is about 0.5 ± 0.2% larger than that at the Pacific Ocean side. These results suggest that we may be able to place constraints on Earth structure using GPS-derived tidal information.