Combined algorithms of high-frequency topographical effects for the boundary-value problems based on Helmert's second condensation method

Abstract

The Helmert’s second condensation method is usually used to condense the topographical masses outside the boundary surface in the determination of the geoid and quasi-geoid based on the boundary-value theory. The condensation of topographical masses produces direct and indirect topographical effects. Nowadays, the Remove-Compute-Restore (RCR) technique has been widely utilized in the boundary-value problems. In view of spectral consistency, high-frequency direct and indirect topographical effects should be used in the Hotine-Helmert/Stokes–Helmert integral when the Earth gravitational model serves as the reference model in determining the (quasi-) geoid. Thus, the algorithms for high-frequency topographical effects are investigated in this manuscript. First, the prism methods for near-zone direct and indirect topographical effects are derived to improve the accuracies of near-zone effects compared with the traditional surface integral methods. Second, the Molodenskii spectral methods truncated to power H⁴ are put forward for far-zone topographical effects. Next, the "prism + Molodenskii spectral-spherical harmonic" combined algorithms for high-frequency topographical effects are further presented. At last, the effectiveness of the combined algorithms for the high-frequency topographical effects are verified in a mountainous test area.