High-resolution Global Gravity Field Research Articles

Analysis of high-resolution global gravity field models for the estimation of International Height Reference System (IHRS) coordinates in Argentina

Abstract Following the definition and realization of the International Height Reference System (IHRS), the vertical coordinate of a given point at the Earth’s surface can be obtained from the computation of the geopotential value from a harmonic expansion of a Global Gravity Model of High-Resolution (GGM-HR) or based on the computation of a local or regional pure gravimetric geoid or quasigeoid. Therefore, an evaluation of the accuracy of GGMs-HR and the geoid model available is needed in order to assess its capability to infer IHRS coordinates. In this study, different GGMs-HR are evaluated against 2287 benchmarks in Argentina. Moreover, the most recent geoid model of Argentina is also evaluated. Geoid undulations at these benchmarks are obtained based on ellipsoidal and orthometric heights in the local vertical datum. Results suggest that among the evaluated GGMs-HR, XGM2019e provides the best agreement with the observed geoid heights, but none of them is accurate enough in order to infer vertical coordinates in the IHRS. Similar conclusions are obtained for the local geoid model for Argentina demonstrating the necessity for a more precise geoid model, following the standards and recommendations given for the IHRS.

Gravity Disturbance Compensation for Inertial Navigation System

This paper investigates the gravity disturbance compensation for inertial navigation system based on high-resolution global gravity field models. The high-precision gravity is calculated using the European Improved Gravity model of the Earth by New techniques (EIGEN)-6C4, which is a representative of the high-resolution models. The coupling effects of horizontal uncalibrated accelerometers drift bias and gravity disturbance on initial alignment and pure calculation have been analyzed in detail. It is pointed out that the gravity disturbance compensation is necessary only when the uncalibrated accelerometers drift bias is smaller than the gravity disturbance with one order of magnitude. Simulation and ship-mounted experimental results validate the theoretical analysis and conclusions.

Structural mapping over the 85°E Ridge and surroundings using EIGEN6C4 high-resolution global combined gravity field model: an integrated approach

A revised gravity anomaly map, generated from the EIGEN6C4 high resolution global gravity model, has been utilized for understanding structure and tectonics over the 85°E Ridge and surroundings. EIGEN6C4 data have been analysed using different derivatives and Analytical Signal techniques for delineation of structural features and comparative analysis with the published results, which shows good correlation. All the structural features observed in two seismic reflection sections over a small part of the 85°E Ridge have also been delineated very well. The lineament trends of N–S, NNW–SSE, ENE–WSW and E–W are consequences of the major changes occurred in the mid-Cretaceous towards the spreading trends from NNW–SSE to N–S and resulted in northward movement of the Indian Plate trailed by interaction with the Asian Plate in the Early Eocene. The lineaments in the eastern side of the ridge have greater circular variances and greater circular standard deviation than those of the western side, which reveals that the eastern side of the ridge has suffered more tectonic activities.

High-resolution global gravity field modelling by the finite volume method

We discuss the parallel computational solution to the modified fixed gravimetric boundary-value problem (MFGBVP). In our approach, the computational domain is a finite space bounded by two spatial boundaries. The boundaries represent an approximation of the Earth’s surface and an approximation of the chosen satellite orbit. Then the MFGBVP consists of the Laplace equation for unknown disturbing potential with the Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions. Solution of such elliptic boundary-value problem is understood in a weak sense, so it always exists and is unique. As a numerical method for our parallel approach, the finite volume method (FVM) has been designed and implemented. The FVM is a method for solving elliptic equations and it leads to a solution of the sparse linear system of equations with an appropriate structure for parallel implementation concerning memory costs. The parallel implementation of FVM algorithms using MPI and NUMA procedures is also described. Several numerical experiments are discussed. In the first testing experiment, we show that the proposed approach is second-order accurate. Then we test a convergence of the FVM solution to the EGM2008 Earth gravitational model when refining the grid. In this case all boundary conditions (BCs) are generated from this model. Finally we present high-resolution global gravity field modelling using input data generated from the DTU10 gravity field model and the GOCO03S satellite-only geopotential model. It combines information from the GRACE and GOCE satellite misions prescribed on the upper boundary with the altimetryderived and terrestrial gravity data available on the Earth’s surface. The obtained global gravity field model is compared with the EGM2008.

Regional geoid of the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, from heterogeneous ground-based gravity data

We present a geoid solution for the Weddell Sea and adjacent continental Antarctic regions. There, a refined geoid is of interest, especially for oceanographic and glaciological applications. For example, to investigate the Weddell Gyre as a part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and, thus, of the global ocean circulation, the mean dynamic topography (MDT) is needed. These days, the marine gravity field can be inferred with high and homogeneous resolution from altimetric height profiles of the mean sea surface. However, in areas permanently covered by sea ice as well as in coastal regions, satellite altimetry features deficiencies. Focussing on the Weddell Sea, these aspects are investigated in detail. In these areas, ground-based data that have not been used for geoid computation so far provide additional information in comparison with the existing high-resolution global gravity field models such as EGM2008. The geoid computation is based on the remove–compute–restore approach making use of least-squares collocation. The residual geoid with respect to a release 4 GOCE model adds up to two meters and more in the near-coastal and continental areas of the Weddell Sea region, also in comparison with EGM2008. Consequently, the thus refined geoid serves to compute new estimates of the regional MDT and geostrophic currents.

The ITG-Goce02 gravity field model from GOCE orbit and gradiometer data based on the short arc approach

In this contribution, we describe the global GOCE-only gravity field model ITG-Goce02 derived from 7.5 months of gradiometer and orbit data. This model represents an alternative to the official ESA products as it is computed completely independently, using a different processing strategy and a separate software package. Our model is derived using the short arc approach, which allows a very effective decorrelation of the highly correlated GOCE gradiometer and orbit data noise by introducing a full empirical covariance matrix for each arc, and gives the possibility to downweight ‘bad’ arcs. For the processing of the orbit data we rely on the integral equation approach instead of the energy integral method, which has been applied in several other GOCE models. An evaluation against high-resolution global gravity field models shows very similar differences of our model compared to the official GOCE results published by ESA (release 2), especially to the model derived by the time-wise approach. This conclusion is confirmed by comparison of the GOCE models to GPS/levelling and altimetry data.

Global gravity field modeling based on GOCE and complementary gravity data

A combined high-resolution global gravity field model up to degree/order (d/o) 720, including error estimates in terms of a full variance–covariance matrix, is determined from GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) and complementary gravity field data. GOCE observations, highly accurate in the low to medium wavelength part (∼d/o 40–220), are supplemented by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) with high accuracy in the low wavelength part (∼d/o 2–150), and altimetric and terrestrial gravity field observations to enhance the spectral resolution of the combined gravity field model. The theory of combining different data sets by least-squares techniques, applying optimum weighting strategies, is illustrated. Full normal equation systems are used to enable stochastic modeling of all individual observations. High performance computing techniques are applied in order to handle normal equations of enormous size (about 2TB). The quality of the resulting gravity field solution is analyzed by comparisons with independent gravity field models and GPS/leveling observations, and also in the frame of the computation of a mean dynamic topography. The validation shows that the new combined model TUM2013C achieves the quality level of established high-resolution models. Compared to EGM2008, the improvements due to the inclusion of GOCE are clearly visible.

On computing ellipsoidal harmonics using Jekeli’s renormalization

Gravity data observed on or reduced to the ellipsoid are preferably represented using ellipsoidal harmonics instead of spherical harmonics. Ellipsoidal harmonics, however, are difficult to use in practice because the computation of the associated Legendre functions of the second kind that occur in the ellipsoidal harmonic expansions is not straightforward. Jekeli’s renormalization simplifies the computation of the associated Legendre functions. We extended the direct computation of these functions—as well as that of their ratio—up to the second derivatives and minimized the number of required recurrences by a suitable hypergeometric transformation. Compared with the original Jekeli’s renormalization the associated Legendre differential equation is fulfilled up to much higher degrees and orders for our optimized recurrences. The derived functions were tested by comparing functionals of the gravitational potential computed with both ellipsoidal and spherical harmonic syntheses. As an input, the high resolution global gravity field model EGM2008 was used. The relative agreement we found between the results of ellipsoidal and spherical syntheses is 10−14, 10−12 and 10−8 for the potential and its first and second derivatives, respectively. Using the original renormalization, this agreement is 10−12, 10−8 and 10−5, respectively. In addition, our optimized recurrences require less computation time as the number of required terms for the hypergeometric functions is less.

Recent developments in high-resolution global altimetric gravity field modeling

In recent years, dedicated effort has been made to improve high-resolution global marine gravity fields. One new global field is the Danish National Space Center (DNSC) 1-minute grid called DNSC08GRA, released in 2008. DNSC08GRA was derived from double-retracked satellite altimetry, mainly from the ERS-1 geodetic mission data, augmented with new retracked GEOSAT data which have significantly enhanced the range and hence the gravity field accuracy.

Direct BEM for high-resolution global gravity field modelling

The paper presents a high-resolution global gravity field modelling by the boundary element method (BEM). A direct BEM formulation for the Laplace equation is applied to get a numerical solution of the linearized fixed gravimetric boundary-value problem. The numerical scheme uses the collocation method with linear basis functions. It involves a discretization of the complicated Earth’s surface, which is considered as a fixed boundary. Here 3D positions of collocation points are simulated from the DNSC08 mean sea surface at oceans and from the SRTM30PLUS_V5.0 global topography model added to EGM96 on lands. High-performance computations together with an elimination of the far zones’ interactions allow a very refined integration over the all Earth’s surface with a resolution up to 0.1 deg. Inaccuracy of the approximate coarse solutions used for the elimination of the far zones’ interactions leads to a long-wavelength error surface included in the obtained numerical solution. This paper introduces an iterative procedure how to reduce such long-wavelength error surface. Surface gravity disturbances as oblique derivative boundary conditions are generated from the EGM2008 geopotential model. Numerical experiments demonstrate how the iterative procedure tends to the final numerical solutions that are converging to EGM2008. Finally the input surface gravity disturbances at oceans are replaced by real data obtained from the DNSC08 altimetryderived gravity data. The ITG-GRACE03S satellite geopotential model up to degree 180 is used to eliminate far zones’ interactions. The final high-resolution global gravity field model with the resolution 0.1 deg is compared with EGM2008.

The GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam/Groupe de Recherche de Gèodésie Spatiale satellite-only and combined gravity field models: EIGEN-GL04S1 and EIGEN-GL04C

The recent improvements in the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) tracking data processing at GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and Groupe de Recherche de Geodesie Spatiale (GRGS) Toulouse, the availability of newer surface gravity data sets in the Arctic, Antarctica and North-America, and the availability of a new mean sea surface height model from altimetry processing at GFZ gave rise to the generation of two new global gravity field models. The first, EIGEN-GL04S1, a satellite-only model complete to degree and order 150 in terms of spherical harmonics, was derived by combination of the latest GFZ Potsdam GRACE-only (EIGEN-GRACE04S) and GRGS Toulouse GRACE/LAGEOS (EIGEN-GL04S) mean field solutions. The second, EIGEN-GL04S1 was combined with surface gravity data from altimetry over the oceans and gravimetry over the continents to derive a new high-resolution global gravity field model called EIGEN-GL04C. This model is complete to degree and order 360 and thus resolves geoid and gravity anomalies at half- wavelengths of 55 km at the equator. A degree-dependent combination method has been applied in order to preserve the high accuracy from the GRACE satellite data in the lower frequency band of the geopotential and to form a smooth transition to the high-frequency information coming from the surface data. Compared to pre-CHAMP global high-resolution models, the accuracy was improved at a spatial resolution of 200 km (half-wavelength) by one order of magnitude to 3 cm in terms of geoid heights. The accuracy of this model (i.e. the commission error) at its full spatial resolution is estimated to be 15 cm. The model shows a reduced artificial meridional striping and an increased correlation of EIGEN-GL04C-derived geostrophic meridional currents with World Ocean Atlas 2001 (WOA01) data. These improvements have led to select EIGEN-GL04C for JASON-1 satellite altimeter data reprocessing.

Fast numerical solution of the linearized Molodensky problem

When standard boundary element methods (BEM) are used in order to solve the linearized vector Molodensky problem we are confronted with two problems: (1) the absence of O(|x|−2) terms in the decay condition is not taken into account, since the single-layer ansatz, which is commonly used as representation of the disturbing potential, is of the order O(|x|−1) as x→∞. This implies that the standard theory of Galerkin BEM is not applicable since the injectivity of the integral operator fails; (2) the N×N stiffness matrix is dense, with N typically of the order 105. Without fast algorithms, which provide suitable approximations to the stiffness matrix by a sparse one with O(N(logN) s ), s≥0, non-zero elements, high-resolution global gravity field recovery is not feasible. Solutions to both problems are proposed. (1) A proper variational formulation taking the decay condition into account is based on some closed subspace of co-dimension 3 of the space of square integrable functions on the boundary surface. Instead of imposing the constraints directly on the boundary element trial space, they are incorporated into a variational formulation by penalization with a Lagrange multiplier. The conforming discretization yields an augmented linear system of equations of dimension N+3×N+3. The penalty term guarantees the well-posedness of the problem, and gives precise information about the incompatibility of the data. (2) Since the upper left submatrix of dimension N×N of the augmented system is the stiffness matrix of the standard BEM, the approach allows all techniques to be used to generate sparse approximations to the stiffness matrix, such as wavelets, fast multipole methods, panel clustering etc., without any modification. A combination of panel clustering and fast multipole method is used in order to solve the augmented linear system of equations in O(N) operations. The method is based on an approximation of the kernel function of the integral operator by a degenerate kernel in the far field, which is provided by a multipole expansion of the kernel function. Numerical experiments show that the fast algorithm is superior to the standard BEM algorithm in terms of CPU time by about three orders of magnitude for N=65 538 unknowns. Similar holds for the storage requirements. About 30 iterations are necessary in order to solve the linear system of equations using the generalized minimum residual method (GMRES). The number of iterations is almost independent of the number of unknowns, which indicates good conditioning of the system matrix.