3D high-resolution numerical modelling of altimetry-derived marine gravity data

Abstract

The paper presents 3D numerical modelling of the altimetry-derived marine gravity data with the high horizontal resolution 1 × 1 arc min. The finite volume method (FVM) as a numerical method is used to solve the altimetry–gravimetry boundary-value problem. Large-scale parallel computations result in the disturbing potential in every finite volume of the discretized 3D computational domain between an ellipsoidal approximation of the Earth’s surface and an upper boundary chosen at altitude of 200 km. Afterwards, the first, second or higher derivatives of the disturbing potential in different directions can be numerically derived using the finite differences. A crucial impact on achieved accuracy has the process of preparing the Dirichlet boundary conditions over oceans/seas. It is based on nonlinear filtering of the geopotential generated on a mean sea surface (MSS) from a GRACE/GOCE-based satellite-only global geopotential model. The paper presents different types of the altimetry-derived marine gravity data obtained on the DTU21_MSS as well as at higher altitudes of the 3D computational domain. The altimetry-derived gravity disturbances on the DTU21_MSS are compared with those from recent datasets like DTU21_GRAV or SS_v31.1. Standard deviations of the residuals are about 2.7 and 2.9 mGal, respectively. The obtained altimetry-derived gravity disturbances at higher altitudes are compared with airborne gravity data from the GRAV-D campaign in US showing accuracy about 3 mGal. In addition, the gravity disturbing gradients as the second derivatives or the third derivatives are provided with the same high resolution on the DTU21_MSS as well as at different altitudes.