scholarly journals Coastal marine gravity modelling from satellite altimetry – case study in the Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
Adili Abulaitijiang ◽  
Ole Baltazar Andersen ◽  
Riccardo Barzaghi ◽  
Per Knudsen
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Field ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Gravity Modelling ◽  
Coastal Marine ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
Collocation Technique ◽  
Data Coverage ◽  
Potential Improvement

Abstract The coastal marine gravity field is not well modelled due to poor data coverage. Recent satellite altimeters provide reliable altimetry observations near the coast, filling the gaps between the open ocean and land. We show the potential of recent satellite altimetry for the coastal marine gravity modelling using the least squares collocation technique. Gravity prediction error near the coast is better than 4 mGal. The modelled gravity anomalies are validated with sparse shipborne gravimetric measurements. We obtained 4.86 mGal precision when using the altimetry data with the best coastal coverage and retracked with narrow primary peak retracker. The predicted gravity field is an enhancement to EGM2008 over the coastal regions. The potential improvement in alti- metric marine gravity will be beneficial for the next generation of EGM development.

A comparison between sea-bottom gravity and satellite altimeter-derived gravity in coastal environments: A case study of the Gulf of Manfredonia (SW Adriatic Sea)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Sante Zampa ◽  
Emanuele Lodolo ◽  
Nicola Creati ◽  
Martina Busetti ◽  
Gianni Madrussani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Field ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Adriatic Sea ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Satellite Altimeter ◽  
Sea Bottom ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
Gravity Measurements ◽  
Near Shore ◽  
Italian Coasts

<p>In this study, we present a comparative analysis between two types of gravity data used in geophysical applications: satellite altimeter-derived gravity and sea-bottom gravity.</p><p>It is largely known that the marine gravity field derived from satellite altimetry in coastal areas is generally biased by signals back-scattered from the nearby land. As a result, the derived gravity anomalies are mostly unreliable for geophysical and geological interpretations of near-shore environments.</p><p>To quantify the errors generated by the land-reflected signals and to verify the goodness of the geologic models inferred from gravity, we compared two different altimetry models with sea-bottom gravity measurements acquired along the Italian coasts from the early 50s to the late 80s.</p><p>We focused on the Gulf of Manfredonia, located in the SE sector of the Adriatic Sea, where: (i) two different sea-bottom gravity surveys have been conducted over the years, (ii) the bathymetry is particularly flat, and (iii) seismic data revealed a prominent carbonate ridge covered by hundreds of meters of Oligocene-Quaternary sediments.</p><p>Gravity field derivatives have been used to enhance both: (i) deep geological contacts, and (ii) coastal noise. The analyses outlined a “ringing-noise effect” which causes the altimeter signal degradation up to 17 km from the coast.</p><p>Differences between the observed gravity and the gravity calculated from a geological model constrained by seismic, showed that all datasets register approximately the same patterns, associated with the Gondola Fault Zone, a major structural discontinuity traversing roughly E-W the investigated area.</p><p>This study highlights the importance of implementing gravity anomalies derived from satellite-altimetry with high-resolution near-shore data, such as the sea-bottom gravity measurements available around the Italian coasts. Such analysis may have significant applications in studying the link between onshore and offshore geological structures in transitional areas.</p>

scholarly journals Application of Radial Basis Functions for Height Datum Unification

Geosciences ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismael Foroughi ◽  
Abdolreza Safari ◽  
Pavel Novák ◽  
Marcelo Santos
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Field ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Gravity Data ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Basis Functions ◽  
Gravity Potential ◽  
Field Modelling ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
Local Gravity ◽  
Local Gravity Field Modelling

Local gravity field modelling demands high-quality gravity data as well as an appropriate mathematical model. Particularly in coastal areas, there may be different types of gravity observations available, for instance, terrestrial, aerial, marine gravity, and satellite altimetry data. Thus, it is important to develop a proper tool to merge the different data types for local gravity field modelling and determination of the geoid. In this study, radial basis functions, as a commonly useful tool for gravity data integration, are employed to model the gravity potential field of the southern part of Iran using terrestrial gravity anomalies, gravity anomalies derived from re-tracked satellite altimetry, marine gravity anomalies, and gravity anomalies synthesized from an Earth gravity model. Reference GNSS/levelling (geometric) geoidal heights are used to evaluate the accuracy of the estimated local gravity field model. The gravimetric geoidal heights are in acceptable agreement with the geometric ones in terms of the standard deviation and the mean value which are 4.1 and 12 cm, respectively. Besides, the reference benchmark of the national first-order levelling network of Iran is located in the study area. The derived gravity model was used to compute the gravity potential difference at this point and then transformed into a height difference which results in the value of the shift of this benchmark with respect to the geoid. The estimated shift shows a good agreement with previously published studies.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Marine Gravity Anomaly Calculation Accuracy by Multi-Source Satellite Altimetry Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanwei Liu ◽  
Yinlong Li ◽  
Qinting Sun ◽  
Jianhua Wan ◽  
Yue Jiao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Root Mean Square Error ◽  
Gravity Anomaly ◽  
Mean Square Error ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Mean Square ◽  
Altimetry Data ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
Satellite Altimetry Data

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of satellite altimetry data accuracy on the marine gravity anomaly accuracy. The data of 12 altimetry satellites in the research area (5°N–23°N, 105°E–118°E) were selected. These data were classified into three groups: A, B, and C, according to the track density, the accuracy of the altimetry satellites, and the differences of self-crossover. Group A contains CryoSat-2, group B includes Geosat, ERS-1, ERS-2, and Envisat, and group C comprises T/P, Jason-1/2/3, HY-2A, SARAL, and Sentinel-3A. In Experiment I, the 5′×5′ marine gravity anomalies were obtained based on the data of groups A, B, and C, respectively. Compared with the shipborne gravity data, the root mean square error (RMSE) of groups A, B, and C was 4.59 mGal, 4.61 mGal, and 4.51 mGal, respectively. The results show that high-precision satellite altimetry data can improve the calculation accuracy of gravity anomaly, and the single satellite CryoSat-2 enables achieving the same effect of multi-satellite joint processing. In Experiment II, the 2′×2′ marine gravity anomalies were acquired based on the data of groups A, A + B, and A + C, respectively. The root mean square error of the above three groups was, respectively, 4.29 mGal, 4.30 mGal, and 4.21 mGal, and the outcomes show that when the spatial resolution is satisfied, adding redundant low-precision altimetry data will add pressure to the calculation of marine gravity anomalies and will not improve the accuracy. An effective combination of multi-satellite data can improve the accuracy and spatial resolution of the marine gravity anomaly inversion.

scholarly journals Recovering Marine Gravity Over the Gulf of Guinea From Multi-Satellite Sea Surface Heights

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Fiifi Annan ◽  
Xiaoyun Wan
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Field ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Shallow Waters ◽  
Gulf Of Guinea ◽  
Gravity Field Model ◽  
The North ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
Sea Surface Heights ◽  
East Component

A regional gravity field product, comprising vertical deflections and gravity anomalies, of the Gulf of Guinea (15°W to 5°E, 4°S to 4°N) has been developed from sea surface heights (SSH) of five altimetry missions. Though the remove-restore technique was adopted, the deflections of the vertical were computed directly from the SSH without the influence of a global geopotential model. The north-component of vertical deflections was more accurate than the east-component by almost three times. Analysis of results showed each satellite can contribute almost equally in resolving the north-component. This is attributable to the nearly northern inclinations of the various satellites. However, Cryosat-2, Jason-1/GM, and SARAL/AltiKa contributed the most in resolving the east-component. We attribute this to the superior spatial resolution of Cryosat-2, the lower inclination of Jason-1/GM, and the high range accuracy of the Ka-band of SARAL/AltiKa. Weights of 0.687 and 0.313 were, respectively, assigned to the north and east components in order to minimize their non-uniform accuracy effect on the resultant gravity anomaly model. Histogram of computed gravity anomalies compared well with those from renowned models: DTU13, SIOv28, and EGM2008. It averagely deviates from the reference models by −0.33 mGal. Further assessment was done by comparing it with a quadratically adjusted shipborne free-air gravity anomalies. After some data cleaning, observations in shallow waters, as well as some ship tracks were still unreliable. By excluding the observations in shallow waters, the derived gravity field model compares well in ocean depths deeper than 2,000 m.

scholarly journals Effects of Interferometric Radar Altimeter Errors on Marine Gravity Field Inversion

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 2465
Author(s):  
Xiaoyun Wan ◽  
Shuanggen Jin ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
Song Tian ◽  
Weiya Kong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Field ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Ocean Surface ◽  
Radar Altimeter ◽  
The North ◽  
Phase Errors ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
East Component ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Field Inversion

The traditional altimetry satellite, which is based on pulse-limited radar altimeter, only measures ocean surface heights along tracks; hence, leads to poorer accuracy in the east component of the vertical deflections compared to the north component, which in turn limits the final accuracy of the marine gravity field inversion. Wide-swath altimetry using radar interferometry can measure ocean surface heights in two dimensions and, thus, can be used to compute vertical deflections in an arbitrary direction with the same accuracy. This paper aims to investigate the impact of Interferometric Radar Altimeter (InRA) errors on gravity field inversion. The error propagation between gravity anomalies and InRA measurements is analyzed, and formulas of their relationship are given. By giving a group of possible InRA parameters, numerical simulations are conducted to analyze the accuracy of gravity anomaly inversion. The results show that the accuracy of the gravity anomalies is mainly influenced by the phase errors of InRA; and the errors of gravity anomalies have a linear approximation relationship with the phase errors. The results also show that the east component of the vertical deflections has almost the same accuracy as the north component.

scholarly journals Regional Recovery of Gravity Anomaly from the Inversion of Diagonal Components of GOCE Gravitational Tensor: A Case Study in Ethiopia

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Eshagh ◽  
Andenet A. Gedamu ◽  
Tulu B. Bedada
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Anomaly ◽  
Gravity Field ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
Opposite Sign ◽  
Joint Inversion ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Tikhonov Regularisation ◽  
The Difference

Abstract The tensor of gravitation is traceless as the gravitational field of the Earth is harmonic outside the Earth’s surface. Therefore, summation of the 2nd-order horizontal derivatives on its diagonal components should be equal to the radial one but with the opposite sign. The gravity field can be recovered locally from either of them, or even their combination. Here, we use the in-orbit diagonal components of the gravitational tensor measured by the gravity field and steady state ocean circulation explorer (GOCE) mission for recovering gravity anomaly with a resolution of 1°×1° at sea level in Ethiopia. In order to solve the system of equations, derived after discretisation of integral equations, the Tikhonov regularisation is applied and the bias of this regularisation is estimated and removed from the estimated gravity anomalies. The errors of the anomalies are estimated and their significance of recovery from these diagonal components is investigated. Statistically, the difference between the recovered anomalies from each scenario is not significant comparing to their errors. However, their joint inversion of the diagonal components improved the solution by about 1 mGal. Furthermore, the inversion processes are better stabilised when using errors of the input data compared with its exclusion, but at the penalty of degradation in accuracy of the estimates.

Comparison among Gravimetric, Astrogravimetric and Astrogeodetic Geoids: Case Study for Austria

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Abd-Elmotaal ◽  
Norbert Kühtreiber
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
Geoid Determination ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Deflections Of The Vertical ◽  
Collocation Technique ◽  
Dense Grid ◽  
Vening Meinesz ◽  
Stokes Integral ◽  
Stokes Kernel

<p>It is used to state that all geoid determination techniques should yield to the same geoid if the indirect effect is properly taken into account (Heiskanen and Moritz, 1967). The current study compares different geoid determination techniques for Austria. The used techniques are the gravimetric, astrogravimetric and astrogeodetic geoid determination techniques. The available data sets (gravity, deflections of the vertical, height, GPS) are described. The window remove-restore technique (Abd-Elmotaal and Kuehtreiber, 2003) has been used. The available gravity anomalies and the deflections of the vertical have been topographically-isostatically reduced using the Airy isostatic hypothesis. The reduced deflections have been used to interpolate deflections on a relatively dense grid covering the data window. These gridded reduced deflections have been used to compute an astrogeodetic geoid for Austria using least-squares collocation technique within the remove-restore scheme. The Vening Meinesz formula has been used to compute an astrogravimetric geoid for Austria. Another gravimetric geoid for Austria has been determined in the framework of the window remove-restore technique using Stokes integral with modified Stokes kernel. All computed geoids have been validated using GNSS/levelling derived geoid. A wide comparison among the derived geoids computed within the current investigation has been carried out.</p>

scholarly journals Calculation of Deflection of Vertical and Gravity Anomalies Over the South China Sea Derived from ICESat-2 Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Defu Che ◽  
Hang Li ◽  
Shengjun Zhang ◽  
Baodong Ma
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
Gravity Field ◽  
South China ◽  
Gravity Anomalies ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
Meridional Component ◽  
China Sea ◽  
Marine Gravity ◽  
Deflection Of Vertical

The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) satellite uses a synchronized multi-beam photon-counting method to collect data from three pairs of synchronous ground tracks. The sampling rate along the ground tracks is designed to be ∼0.7 m, much smaller than that used in conventional radar altimeters. Hence, it is reasonable to expect an improvement in marine gravity recovery over coastal zones using ICESat-2 data. ICESat-2 provides valid sea surface height (SSH) measurements and a standard data product (ATL12) over ocean areas. This led us to consider the possibility of investigating its ability to calculate the deflection of vertical (DOV) and marine gravity anomalies. We processed ATL12 data about 22 months over the South China Sea (0°–23°N, 103°–120°E) and verified the ability of ICESat-2 SSH measurements to be used in calculating directional components of DOV. The results show that the ICESat-2 SSH data have a similar centimeter-magnitude accuracy level as data from the Jason-2 satellite. Furthermore, the accuracy of cross-track deflection of vertical (CTDOV) calculations between non-identical side beams is lower. For along-track points, the difference in accuracy between the solution of the prime component and the meridional component is significantly reduced, the prime component accuracy is significantly better than the directional components of the gridded deflection of vertical (GDOV), although the enhancement is weak for the meridional component. We also implemented the inversion of the ICESat-2 single mission based on the inverse Vening Meinesz formula, and verified the capability of ICESat-2 gravity field detection using shipborne gravity measurements and XGM2019 gravity field model, and found that the accuracy is 1.35 mGal and 2.47 mGal, respectively. ICESat-2 deserves the attention of the altimetry community, and its advantages are expected to make it an alternative data source for multi-mission fusion inversion of the ocean gravity field in the future.

The DNSC08GRA global marine gravity field from double retracked satellite altimetry

2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ole Baltazar Andersen ◽  
Per Knudsen ◽  
Philippa A. M. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Field ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Marine Gravity
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