Continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) observations have been logged at the Finnish Antarctic research station (Aboa) since February 2003. The station is located in Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. Almost 5000 daily observation files have been archived based on yearly scientific expeditions. These files have not been fully analysed until now. This study reports for the first time on the consistent and homogeneous data processing and analysis of the 15-year long time series. Daily coordinates are obtained using Precise Point Positioning (PPP) processing based on two approaches. The first approach is based on the Kalman filter and uses the RTKLIB open source library to produce daily solutions by unconventionally running the filter in the forward and backward direction. The second approach uses APPS web service and is based on GIPSY scientific processing engine. The two approaches show an excellent agreement with less than 3 mm rms error horizontally and 6 mm rms error vertically. The derived position time series is analysed in terms of trend, periodicity and noise characteristics. The noise of the time series was found to be power-law noise model with spectral index closer to flicker noise. In addition, several periodic signals were found at 5, 14, 183 and 362 days. Furthermore, most of the horizontal movement was found to be in the North direction at a rate of 11.23 ± 0.09 mm/y, whereas the rate in the East direction was estimated to be 1.46 ± 0.05 mm/y. Lastly, the 15-year long time series revealed a movement upwards at a rate of 0.79 ± 0.35 mm/y. Despite being an unattended station, Aboa provides one of the most continuous and longest GPS time series in Antarctica. Therefore, we believe that this research increases the awareness of local geophysical phenomena in a less reported area of the Antarctic continent.

The growing need for a consistent and densified GNSS position and velocity solution for the Nordic and Baltic countries resulted in development of the joint GNSS Analysis Centre of the Nordic Geodetic Commission (NKG) in 2012. We first developed the methods of the operational processing and combination of solutions and then reprocessed the full data history between 1997 and 2017. In this study, we present an ITRF2014 densification for the area including 252 stations having more than 3 years of data. We combined all 20 years of daily solutions with full covariance matrices instead of station-wise analysis and analyzed the noise characteristics of the residual time series. We concluded that the flicker plus white noise uncertainty estimates were more robust than the general power-law estimates. Additionally, we found significant horizontal velocity differences at the co-located stations, pointing out biases not included in the formal uncertainties. The solution is more accurate and denser than any previous estimate, and it will be of great benefit for maintaining the reference frames in the Nordic and Baltic countries, as well as for the geodynamic studies in the area.

In Fennoscandia, the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) causes intraplate deformations that affect the national static reference frames. The GNSS-determined velocities are important data for constraining the GIA models, which are necessary for maintaining the national reference frames. The Nordic Geodetic Commission (NKG) has published a dense and consistent GNSS station velocity solution in 2019, and we present now an update of the solution covering additional 3.5 years of data. Undetected positional offsets are the main factor decreasing the accuracy of the velocity estimates. We developed a method for the semi-automatic offset detection to improve the quality of our solution. The results show that we could correctly detect 74% of the manually determined offsets, and the undetected offsets would have caused a median 0.1 mm/y bias in trend. The method pointed out some otherwise unnoticed offsets and will decrease the need for manual analysis in the future. The updated velocity solution especially improves the velocity estimates of the newly established stations and the quality of the velocity estimates in Baltic countries. The formal uncertainties estimated using the power-law plus white noise model were at a median of 0.06 and 0.15 mm/y for horizontal and vertical velocities, respectively. However, we concluded that the systematic velocity uncertainties due to the reference frame alignment were approximately at the same level.

Traditionally, geoid models have been validated using GNSS-levelling benchmarks on land only. As such benchmarks cannot be established offshore, marine areas of geoid models must be evaluated in a different way. In this research, we present a marine GNSS/gravity campaign where existing geoid models were validated at sea areas by GNSS measurements in combination with sea surface models. Additionally, a new geoid model, calculated using the newly collected marine gravity data, was validated. The campaign was carried out with the marine geology research catamaran Geomari (operated by the Geological Survey of Finland), which sailed back and forth the eastern part of the Finnish territorial waters of the Gulf of Finland during the early summer of 2018. From the GNSS and sea surface data we were able to obtain geoid heights at sea areas with an accuracy of a few centimetres. When the GNSS derived geoid heights are compared with geoid heights from the geoid models differences between the respective models are seen in the most eastern and southern parts of the campaign area. The new gravity data changed the geoid model heights by up to 15 cm in areas of sparse/non-existing gravity data.

The Nordic Geodetic Commission (NKG) has launched a joint NKG GNSS Analysis Centre that aims to routinely produce high qualityGNSS solutions for the common needs of the NKG and the Nordic and Baltic countries. A consistent and densified velocity field is needed for the constraining of the gla-cial isostatic adjustment (GIA) modelling that is a key component of maintaining the national reference frame realisations in the area. We described the methods of the NKG GNSS Analysis Centre including the defined processing setup for the local analysis centres (LAC) and for the combination centres.We analysed the results of the first 2.5 years (2014.5-2016). The results showed that different subnets were consistent with the combined solution within 1-2 mm level. We observed the so called network effect affecting our reference frame alignment. However, the accuracy of the reference frame alignment was on a few millimetre level in the area of the main interest (Nordic and Baltic Countries). TheNKGGNSS AC was declared fully operational in April 2017.

The tenth launch (L10) of the European Global Navigation Satellite System Galileo filled in all orbital slots in the constellation. The launch carried four Galileo satellites and took place in July 2018. The satellites were declared operational in February 2019. In this study, we report on the performance of the Galileo L10 satellites in terms of orbital inclination and repeat period parameters, broadcast satellite clocks and signal in space (SiS) performance indicators. We used all available broadcast navigation data from the IGS consolidated navigation files. These satellites have not been reported in the previous studies. First, the orbital inclination ($56.7\pm 0.15$°) and repeat period ($50680.7\pm 0.22$ s) for all four satellites are within the nominal values. The data analysis reveals also 13.5-, 27-, 177- and 354-days periodic signals. Second, the broadcast satellite clocks show different correction magnitude due to different trends in the bias component. One clock switch and several other minor correction jumps have occurred since the satellites were declared operational. Short-term discontinuities are within ±1 ps/s, whereas clock accuracy values are constantly below 0.20 m (root-mean-square—rms). Finally, the SiS performance has been very high in terms of availability and accuracy. Monthly SiS availability has been constantly above the target value of 87% and much higher in 2020 as compared to 2019. Monthly SiS accuracy has been below 0.20 m (95th percentile) and below 0.40 m (99th percentile). The performance figures depend on the content and quality of the consolidated navigation files as well as the precise reference products. Nevertheless, these levels of accuracy are well below the 7 m threshold (95th percentile) specified in the Galileo service definition document.