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Articles

Number 2 (2009)

Chart Datum Transfer Using a GPS Tide Gauge Buoy in Chesapeake Bay

Submitted
August 13, 2013
Published
2009-11-11

Abstract

In 2008 NAVOCEANO conducted trials to test the effectiveness of using GPS buoys for water level datum transfers. The GPS vertical positioning evaluation showed that the real-time precise point positioning solutions were not corrected for earth tide, leading to a 10 cm bias relative to three post-processing methods. Ignoring buoy tilt led to errors of up to 10 cm; however, when using 6-minute averaging, the maximum error reduced to ~2 cm. Water level transfer from a tide station 1.3 km away resulted in a datum 12 cm lower than the VDatum model estimate.