HR: 09:15h
AN: G31A-06    [PDF]
TI: Combining sea surface and terrestrial gravity data for global geopotential modeling and geoid determination
AU: * Condi, F
EM: fcondi@csr.utexas.edu
AF: Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin, 3925 W. Braker Lane, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AU: Gunter, B
EM: gunter@csr.utexas.edu
AF: Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin, 3925 W. Braker Lane, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AU: Ries, J
EM: ries@csr.utexas.edu
AF: Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin, 3925 W. Braker Lane, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AU: Tapley, B
EM: tapley@csr.utexas.edu
AF: Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin, 3925 W. Braker Lane, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AB: We present a method for combining sea surface and terrestrial gravity data with the new precise GRACE gravity data into a global geopotential model solution. Traditional methods typically require density and height assignments, gridding, and downward continuation in the case of terrestrial gravity data, and dynamic topography models for sea surface data. Our method allows different types of data, at different altitudes, of varying quality, and with incomplete to redundant coverage, to be combined rigorously with spaced based observations to produce a full covariance least squares fit to high degrees without patching. Combined with the latest in high performance computers, as well as a new least-squares algorithm designed to handle extremely large data sets, results from the terrestrial data are shown for models up to spherical harmonic degree 360.
DE: 1214 Geopotential theory and determination
DE: 1243 Space geodetic surveys
DE: 1299 General or miscellaneous
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting