A critical look at the reported errors of geodetic products

Geodesy provides the highest precision and accuracy International Terrestrial Reference Frame, International Celestial Reference Frame and Earth Orientation Parameters. However, in our processing chain, we take mathematical shortcuts, drop higher order polynomials, assume linearity where it is no longer valid, omit correlations and colored noise, and use outdated models. If intra- or inter-technique combinations are done, they happen at different stages, and different methods are employed. The datums applied to the reference frames are inherited over decades, accumulating all uncertainties of their predecessors. Dependencies between the reference frames and the EOP are largely ignored. Finally we inflate our errors by a predefined factor, to somehow account for all of that.
This is just a short list of the inconsistencies within our main products. Even for a specialist it will be almost impossible to list them all, for a mere end-user its an insurmountable task. In this work we will investigate these central products of geodesy, focusing mainly on the errors, their derivation, and significance from a user perspective. We look exemplarily at various official IVS and IAG products, and their reported errors. We investigate how transparent their nature and derivation is for the final user, if the parameters in question follow our physical understanding of the matter, and what insight we might gain from them.