Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid

One of the most important stages in the computation of a global geopotential model is the computation of the spherical harmonic coefficients from gravity anomalies on the normal ellipsoid. None of the existing methods provides an exact solution, and all show severe shortcomings in the high degrees o...

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Main Authors: Claessens, Sten, Featherstone, Will
Other Authors: Fernando Sanso
Format: Conference Paper
Published: Springer 2005
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/26541
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author Claessens, Sten
Featherstone, Will
author2 Fernando Sanso
author_facet Fernando Sanso
Claessens, Sten
Featherstone, Will
author_sort Claessens, Sten
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description One of the most important stages in the computation of a global geopotential model is the computation of the spherical harmonic coefficients from gravity anomalies on the normal ellipsoid. None of the existing methods provides an exact solution, and all show severe shortcomings in the high degrees of the spectrum. In this paper, a new, theoretically exact method is proposed, which is moreover easily applicable up to very high degree and order (2160 and beyond). The solution of the geopotential coefficients is presented as a weighted sum over 'spherically approximated' coefficients of equal order, where the gravity anomalies are presumed to reside on a sphere.The weights depend solely upon the degree and order of the coefficient and the definition of the normal ellipsoid and its gravity field. Numerical comparisons with existing methods show substantial differences, especially in the high degrees, which can be explained by the fact that all previous methods are of limited accuracy.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-265412017-10-02T02:27:48Z Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid Claessens, Sten Featherstone, Will Fernando Sanso geopotential models spherical harmonics ellipsoidal boundary value problem One of the most important stages in the computation of a global geopotential model is the computation of the spherical harmonic coefficients from gravity anomalies on the normal ellipsoid. None of the existing methods provides an exact solution, and all show severe shortcomings in the high degrees of the spectrum. In this paper, a new, theoretically exact method is proposed, which is moreover easily applicable up to very high degree and order (2160 and beyond). The solution of the geopotential coefficients is presented as a weighted sum over 'spherically approximated' coefficients of equal order, where the gravity anomalies are presumed to reside on a sphere.The weights depend solely upon the degree and order of the coefficient and the definition of the normal ellipsoid and its gravity field. Numerical comparisons with existing methods show substantial differences, especially in the high degrees, which can be explained by the fact that all previous methods are of limited accuracy. 2005 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/26541 Springer restricted
spellingShingle geopotential models
spherical harmonics
ellipsoidal boundary value problem
Claessens, Sten
Featherstone, Will
Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid
title Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid
title_full Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid
title_fullStr Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid
title_full_unstemmed Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid
title_short Computation of Geopotential Coefficients from Gravity Anomalies on the Ellipsoid
title_sort computation of geopotential coefficients from gravity anomalies on the ellipsoid
topic geopotential models
spherical harmonics
ellipsoidal boundary value problem
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/26541