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FRAGILE EARTH: Geological Processes from Global to Local Scales and Associated Hazards (4-7 September 2011)

Paper No. 7
Presentation Time: 15:45

GLOBAL GRAVITY FIELD MODELS DERIVED FROM GOCE AND COMPLEMENTARY GRAVITY FIELD DATA AND THEIR USE IN EARTH SYSTEM RESEARCH


PAIL, Roland1, SCHUH, Wolf-Dieter2, MAYER-GÜRR, Torsten3, JÄGGI, Adrian4, MAIER, Andrea5, FECHER, Thomas1 and BROCKMANN, Jan Martin2, (1)Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy, TU München, Arcisstraße 21, München, 80333, Germany, (2)Bonn, 53115, (3)Graz, 8010, Austria, (4)Bern, 3012, Switzerland, (5)Graz, 8042, Austria, pail@bv.tu-muenchen.de

The launch of dedicated gravity satellite missions such as GRACE and GOCE has revolutionized our knowledge of the Earth’s gravity field. Since the gravity field reflects mass distribution and mass transport through the complex system Earth, a precise knowledge of the global gravity field and its temporal variations is important for many disciplines of Earth science, such as solid Earth geophysics, oceanography, hydrology, glaciology, atmosphere and climate research.

In 2002 the along-track satellite formation mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) was launched into a near polar low Earth orbit. Since then, more than 8 years of observations have been gathered, from which the global gravity field and its temporal variations for spatial wavelength up to 300 to 400 km could be derived. The GOCE satellite (Gravity Field and Steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) was successfully launched on 17 March 2009. GOCE is the first mission that observes direct functionals of the Earth gravity field from space.

In this contribution, the status of global gravity field recovery shall be presented. In addition to pure GOCE-only models, which show the added value of GOCE, also combination models including GRACE and other satellite data shall be discussed and evaluated. In order to further increase the spatial resolution, apart from these satellite-only models also combined gravity field models, where the satellite gravity information is complemented with terrestrial gravity field and satellite altimetry data, shall be presented. The combination is performed consistently by addition of full normal equations and stochastic modeling of the individual data types. The model is validated against complementary global gravity field models und regional GPS/leveling observations.

Additionally, the use of these new-generation global gravity field models for geophysics and geology, oceanography, and their contribution to monitor global changes processes will be discussed, and first results will be presented.

Session No. 45

T8B. Current and Future Geodetic Satellite Missions and Their Applications to Geology
Wednesday, 7 September 2011: 14:00-16:30
A 015 (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
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