Canadian gravimetric geoid model 2010

A new gravimetric geoid model, Canadian Gravimetric Geoid 2010 (CGG2010), has been developed to upgrade the previous geoid model CGG2005. CGG2010 represents the separation between the reference ellipsoid of GRS80 and the Earth’s equipotential surface of $W_0=62{,}636{,}855.69~\mathrm{m}^2\mathrm{s}^{-2}$ W 0 = 62 , 636 , 855.69 m 2 s ? 2 . The Stokes–Helmert method has been re-formulated for the determination of CGG2010 by a new Stokes kernel modification. It reduces the effect of the systematic error in the Canadian terrestrial gravity data on the geoid to the level below 2 cm from about 20 cm using other existing modification techniques, and renders a smooth spectral combination of the satellite and terrestrial gravity data. The long wavelength components of CGG2010 include the GOCE contribution contained in a combined GRACE and GOCE geopotential model: GOCO01S, which ranges from $-20.1$ ? 20.1 to 16.7 cm with an RMS of 2.9 cm. Improvement has been also achieved through the refinement of geoid modelling procedure and the use of new data. (1) The downward continuation effect has been accounted accurately ranging from $-22.1$ ? 22.1 to 16.5 cm with an RMS of 0.9 cm. (2) The geoid residual from the Stokes integral is reduced to 4 cm in RMS by the use of an ultra-high degree spherical harmonic representation of global elevation model for deriving the reference Helmert field in conjunction with a derived global geopotential model. (3) The Canadian gravimetric geoid model is published for the first time with associated error estimates. In addition, CGG2010 includes the new marine gravity data, ArcGP gravity grids, and the new Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED) 1:50K. CGG2010 is compared to GPS-levelling data in Canada. The standard deviations are estimated to vary from 2 to 10 cm with the largest error in the mountainous areas of western Canada. We demonstrate its improvement over the previous models CGG2005 and EGM2008.     

Combined regional geoid determination for the ERS-1 radar altimeter calibration

Summary A local model of the geoid in NE Italy and its section along the Venice ground track of the ERS-1 satellite of the European Space Agency is presented. The observational data consist of geoid undulations determined with a network of 25 stations of known orthometric (by spirit leveling) and ellipsoidal (by GPS differential survey) and of 13 deflections of the vertical measured at sites of the network for which, besides the ellipsoidal (WGS84) coordinates, also astronomic coordinates were known. The network covers an area of 1×1 degrees and is tied to a vertical and horizontal datum: one vertex of the network is the tide gauge of Punta Salute, in Venice, providing a tie to a mean sea level; a second vertex is the site for mobile laser systems at Monte Venda, on the Euganei Hills, for which geocentric coordinates resulted from the analysis of several LAGEOS passes.The interpolation algorithm used to map sparse and heterogeneous data to a regular grid of geoid undulations is based on least squares collocation and the autocorrelation function of the geoid undulations is modeled by a third order Markov process on flat earth. The algorithm has been applied to the observed undulations and deflections of the vertical after subtraction of the corresponding predictions made on the basis of the OSU91A global geoid model of the Ohio State University, complete to degree and order 360. The locally improved geoid results by adding back, at the nodes of a regular grid, the predictions of the global field to the least squares interpolated values. Comparison of the model values with the raw data at the observing stations indicates that the mean discrepancy is virtually zero with a root mean square dispersion of 8 cm, assuming that the ellipsoidal heights and vertical deflections data are affected by a random error of 3 cm and 0.5 respectively. The corrections resulting from the local data and added to the background 360×360 global model are described by a smooth surface with excursions from the reference surface not larger than ±30 cm.     

全国及部分省市地区高精度、高分辨率大地水准面的研究及其实施

结合我国重力和地形资料及国内外较优的重力场模型，研制了适合我国重力场特征的360阶重力场模型WDM94，建立了中国新一代包括全部陆海国土的dm级（似）大地水准面CQG2000，建立了中国以GPS／水准为基础的高程异常控制网，利用海洋卫星测高数据进行我国海洋大地水准面的计算、我国陆地重力（似）大地水准面的研制厦我国陆海（似）大地水准面的拼接；研制了江苏省、海南省、深圳市、大连市、南京市及南水北调西线工程具有cm级精度的省市地区（似）大地水准面模型；结合GPS技术和高精度（似）大地水准面模型，研制了GPS测图软硬件一体化系统。     

Analysis of some systematic errors affecting altimeter-derived sea surface gradient with application to geoid determination over Taiwan

This paper analyzes several systematic errors affecting sea surface gradients derived from Seasat, Geosat/ERM, Geosat/GM, ERS-1/35d, ERS-1/GM and TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry. Considering the data noises, the conclusion is: (1) only Seasat needs to correct for the non-geocentricity induced error, (2) only Seasat and Geosat/GM need to correct for the one cycle per revolution error, (3) only Seasat, ERS-1/GM and Geosat/GM need to correct for the tide model error; over shallow waters it is suggested to use a local tide model not solely from altimetry. The effects of the sea surface topography on gravity and geoid computations from altimetry are significant over areas with major oceanographic phenomena. In conclusion, sea surface gradient is a better data type than sea surface height. Sea surface gradients from altimetry, land gravity anomalies, ship gravity anomalies and elevation data were then used to calculate the geoid over Taiwan by least-squares collocation. The inclusion of sea surface gradients improves the geoid prediction by 27% when comparing the GPS-derived and the predicted geoidal heights, and by 30% when comparing the observed and the geoid-derived deflections of the vertical. The predicted geoid along coastal areas is accurate to 2 cm and can help GPS to do the third-order leveling. Received 22 January 1996; Accepted 13 September 1996     

A new,high-resolution geoid for Canada and part of the U.S. by the 1D-FFT method

A new, high-resolution and high-precision geoid has been computed for the whole of Canada and part of the U.S., ranging from 35°N to about 90°N in latitude and 210°E to 320°E in longitude. The OSU91A geopotential model complete to degree and order 360 was combined with a 5 × 5 mean gravity anomaly grid and 1km × 1km topographical information to generate the geoid file. The remove-restore technique was adopted for the computation of terrain effects by Helmert's condensation reduction. The contribution of the local gravity data to the geoid was computed strictly by the 1D-FFT technique, which allows for the evaluation of the discrete spherical Stokes integral without any approximation, parallel by parallel. The indirect effects of up to second order were considered. The internal precision of the geoid, i.e. the contribution of the gravity data and the model coefficients noise, was also evaluated through error propagation by FFT. In a relative sense, these errors seem to agree quite well with the external errors and show clearly the weak areas of the geoid which are mostly due to insufficient gravity data coverage. Comparison of the gravimetric geoid with the GPS/levelling-derived geoidal heights of eight local GPS networks with a total of about 900 stations shows that the absolute agreement with respect to the GPS/levelling datum is generally better than 10 cm RMS and the relative agreement ranges, in most cases, from 4 to 1 ppm over short distances of about 20 to 100km, 1 to 0.5 ppm over distances of about 100 to 200 km, and 0.5 to 0.1 ppm for baselines of 200 to over 1000 km. Other existing geoids, such as UNB90, GEOID90 and GSD91, were also included in the comparison, showing that the new geoid achieves the best agreement with the GPS/levelling data.Presented at theIAG General Meeting, Beijing, P.R. China, Aug. 6–13, 1993     

The GEOID96 high-resolution geoid height model for the United States

The 2 arc-minute × 2 arc-minute geoid model (GEOID96) for the United States supports the conversion between North American Datum 1983 (NAD 83) ellipsoid heights and North American Vertical Datum 1988 (NAVD 88) Helmert heights. GEOID96 includes information from global positioning system (GPS) height measurements at optically leveled benchmarks. A separate geocentric gravimetric geoid, G96SSS, was first calculated, then datum transformations and least-squares collocation were used to convert from G96SSS to GEOID96. Fits of 2951 GPS/level (ITRF94/NAVD 88) benchmarks to G96SSS show a 15.1-cm root mean square (RMS) around a tilted plane (0.06 ppm, 178^∘ azimuth), with a mean value of −31.4 cm (15.6-cm RMS without plane). This mean represents a bias in NAVD 88 from global mean sea level, remaining nearly constant when computed from subsets of benchmarks. Fits of 2951 GPS/level (NAD 83/NAVD 88) benchmarks to GEOID96 show a 5.5-cm RMS (no tilts, zero average), due primarily to GPS error. The correlated error was 2.5 cm, decorrelating at 40 km, and is due to gravity, geoid and GPS errors. Differences between GEOID96 and GEOID93 range from −122 to +374 cm due primarily to the non-geocentricity of NAD 83. Received: 28 July 1997 / Accepted: 2 September 1998     

Minimization and estimation of geoid undulation errors

The objective of this paper is to minimize the geoid undulation errors by focusing on the contribution of the global geopotential model and regional gravity anomalies, and to estimate the accuracy of the predicted gravimetric geoid.The geopotential model's contribution is improved by (a) tailoring it using the regional gravity anomalies and (b) introducing a weighting function to the geopotential coefficients. The tailoring and the weighting function reduced the difference (1) between the geopotential model and the GPS/levelling-derived geoid undulations in British Columbia by about 55% and more than 10%, respectively.Geoid undulations computed in an area of 40° by 120° by Stokes' integral with different kernel functions are analyzed. The use of the approximated kernels results in about 25 cm () and 190 cm (maximum) geoid errors. As compared with the geoid derived by GPS/levelling, the gravimetric geoid gives relative differences of about 0.3 to 1.4 ppm in flat areas, and 1 to 2.5 ppm in mountainous areas for distances of 30 to 200 km, while the absolute difference (1) is about 5 cm and 20 cm, respectively.A optimal Wiener filter is introduced for filtering of the gravity anomaly noise, and the performance is investigated by numerical examples. The internal accuracy of the gravimetric geoid is studied by propagating the errors of the gravity anomalies and the geopotential coefficients into the geoid undulations. Numerical computations indicate that the propagated geoid errors can reasonably reflect the differences between the gravimetric and GPS/levelling-derived geoid undulations in flat areas, such as Alberta, and is over optimistic in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia.Paper presented at the IAG General Meeting, Beijing, China, August 8–13, 1993.     

The Geoid Slope Validation Survey 2014 and GRAV-D airborne gravity enhanced geoid comparison results in Iowa

Three Geoid Slope Validation Surveys were planned by the National Geodetic Survey for validating geoid improvement gained by incorporating airborne gravity data collected by the “Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum” (GRAV-D) project in flat, medium and rough topographic areas, respectively. The first survey GSVS11 over a flat topographic area in Texas confirmed that a 1-cm differential accuracy geoid over baseline lengths between 0.4 and 320 km is achievable with GRAV-D data included (Smith et al. in J Geod 87:885–907, 2013). The second survey, Geoid Slope Validation Survey 2014 (GSVS14) took place in Iowa in an area with moderate topography but significant gravity variation. Two sets of geoidal heights were computed from GPS/leveling data and observed astrogeodetic deflections of the vertical at 204 GSVS14 official marks. They agree with each other at a \({\pm }1.2\,\, \hbox {cm}\) level, which attests to the high quality of the GSVS14 data. In total, four geoid models were computed. Three models combined the GOCO03/5S satellite gravity model with terrestrial and GRAV-D gravity with different strategies. The fourth model, called xGEOID15A, had no airborne gravity data and served as the benchmark to quantify the contribution of GRAV-D to the geoid improvement. The comparisons show that each model agrees with the GPS/leveling geoid height by 1.5 cm in mark-by-mark comparisons. In differential comparisons, all geoid models have a predicted accuracy of 1–2 cm at baseline lengths from 1.6 to 247 km. The contribution of GRAV-D is not apparent due to a 9-cm slope in the western 50-km section of the traverse for all gravimetric geoid models, and it was determined that the slopes have been caused by a 5 mGal bias in the terrestrial gravity data. If that western 50-km section of the testing line is excluded in the comparisons, then the improvement with GRAV-D is clearly evident. In that case, 1-cm differential accuracy on baselines of any length is achieved with the GRAV-D-enhanced geoid models and exhibits a clear improvement over the geoid models without GRAV-D data. GSVS14 confirmed that the geoid differential accuracies are in the 1–2 cm range at various baseline lengths. The accuracy increases to 1 cm with GRAV-D gravity when the west 50 km line is not included. The data collected by the surveys have high accuracy and have the potential to be used for validation of other geodetic techniques, e.g., the chronometric leveling. To reach the 1-cm height differences of the GSVS data, a clock with frequency accuracy of \(10^{-18}\) is required. Using the GSVS data, the accuracy of ellipsoidal height differences can also be estimated.     

Confirming regional 1 cm differential geoid accuracy from airborne gravimetry: the Geoid Slope Validation Survey of 2011

A terrestrial survey, called the Geoid Slope Validation Survey of 2011 (GSVS11), encompassing leveling, GPS, astrogeodetic deflections of the vertical (DOV) and surface gravity was performed in the United States. The general purpose of that survey was to evaluate the current accuracy of gravimetric geoid models, and also to determine the impact of introducing new airborne gravity data from the ‘Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum’ (GRAV-D) project. More specifically, the GSVS11 survey was performed to determine whether or not the GRAV-D airborne gravimetry, flown at 11 km altitude, can reduce differential geoid error to below 1 cm in a low, flat gravimetrically uncomplicated region. GSVS11 comprises a 325 km traverse from Austin to Rockport in Southern Texas, and includes 218 GPS stations ( $\sigma _{\Delta h }= 0.4$ cm over any distance from 0.4 to 325 km) co-located with first-order spirit leveled orthometric heights ( $\sigma _{\Delta H }= 1.3$ cm end-to-end), including new surface gravimetry, and 216 astronomically determined vertical deflections $(\sigma _{\mathrm{DOV}}= 0.1^{\prime \prime })$ . The terrestrial survey data were compared in various ways to specific geoid models, including analysis of RMS residuals between all pairs of points on the line, direct comparison of DOVs to geoid slopes, and a harmonic analysis of the differences between the terrestrial data and various geoid models. These comparisons of the terrestrial survey data with specific geoid models showed conclusively that, in this type of region (low, flat) the geoid models computed using existing terrestrial gravity, combined with digital elevation models (DEMs) and GRACE and GOCE data, differential geoid accuracy of 1 to 3 cm (1 $\sigma )$ over distances from 0.4 to 325 km were currently being achieved. However, the addition of a contemporaneous airborne gravity data set, flown at 11 km altitude, brought the estimated differential geoid accuracy down to 1 cm over nearly all distances from 0.4 to 325 km.     

Ellipsoidal geoid computation

Modern geoid computation uses a global gravity model, such as EGM96, as a third component in a remove–restore process. The classical approach uses only two: the reference ellipsoid and a geometrical model representing the topography. The rationale for all three components is reviewed, drawing attention to the much smaller precision now needed when transforming residual gravity anomalies. It is shown that all ellipsoidal effects needed for geoid computation with millimetric accuracy are automatically included provided that the free air anomaly and geoid are calculated correctly from the global model. Both must be consistent with an ellipsoidal Earth and with the treatment of observed gravity data. Further ellipsoidal corrections are then negligible. Precise formulae are developed for the geoid height and the free air anomaly using a global gravity model, given as spherical harmonic coefficients. Although only linear in the anomalous potential, these formulae are otherwise exact for an ellipsoidal reference Earth—they involve closed analytical functions of the eccentricity (and the Earths spin rate), rather than a truncated power series in e². They are evaluated using EGM96 and give ellipsoidal corrections to the conventional free air anomaly ranging from –0.84 to +1.14 mGal, both extremes occurring in Tibet. The geoid error corresponding to these differences is dominated by longer wavelengths, so extrema occur elsewhere, rising to +766 mm south of India and falling to –594 mm over New Guinea. At short wavelengths, the difference between ellipsoidal corrections based only on EGM96 and those derived from detailed local gravity data for the North Sea geoid GEONZ97 has a standard deviation of only 3.3 mm. However, the long-wavelength components missed by the local computation reach 300 mm and have a significant slope. In Australia, for example, such a slope would amount to a 600-mm rise from Perth to Cairns.     

Geoid determination in Turkey (TG-91)

It is considered that precise geoid determination is one of the main current geodetic problems in Turkey since GPS defined coordinates require geoidal heights in practice. In order to determine the geoid by least squares collocation (LSC) the area covering Turkey was divided into 114 blocks of size 1° × 1°. LSC approximation to the geoid based upon the tailored geopotential model GPM2-T1 is constructed within each block. The model GPM2-T1 complete to degree and order 200 has been developed by tailoring of the model GPM2 to mean free-air anomalies and mean heights of one degree blocks in Turkey. Terrain effect reduced point gravity data spaced 5 × 5 within each block which the sides extended 0°.5 were used in LSC. Residual terrain model (RTM) depends on point heights at 15×20 griding and 5×5 and 15×15 mean heights has been carried out in terrain effect reduction. Indirect effect of RTM on geoid is also taken into account. The geoid, called Turkish Geoid 1991 (TG-91), referenced to GRS-80 ellipsoid has been computed at 3 × 3 griding nodes within each block. The quality of the TG-91 is also evaluated by comparing computed and GPS derived geoidal height differences, and 2.1 – 2.6 ppm accuracy for average baseline lenght of 45 km is obtained.     

联合多代测高数据建立中国海域重力异常模型

本文联合T/P数据、T/P新轨道数据、ERS数据、GFO数据、GeosatGM数据和ERS-1/168数据,用测高卫星记录点的位置信息直接计算沿轨大地水准面的方向导数,结合测线轨迹方向的方位角在交叉点处推求垂线偏差,然后利用逆Vening-Meinesz公式计算了中国近海(0o～41oN,105o～132oN)2′×2′格网分辨率的海域重力异常模型。将其与CLS_SHOW99重力异常模型比较,统计结果表示与该模型差异的RMS为8.15mgal,在剔除差值大于20mgal的点(剔除3.3%)以后,RMS为4.72mgal;与某海区船测重力异常比较的RMS为8.91mgal。     

Review and numerical assessment of the direct topographical reduction in geoid determination

Recent papers in the geodetic literature promote the reduction of gravity for geoid determination according to the Helmert condensation technique where the entire reduction is made in place before downward continuation. The alternative approach, primarily developed by Moritz, uses two evaluation points, one at the Earths surface, the other on the (co-)geoid, for the direct topographic effect. Both approaches are theoretically legitimate and the derivations in each case make use of the planar approximation and a Lipschitz condition on height. Each method is re-formulated from first principles, yielding equations for the direct effect that contain only the spherical approximation. It is shown that neither method relies on a linear relationship between gravity anomalies and height (as claimed by some). Numerical tests, however, show that the practical implementations of these two approaches yield significant differences. Computational tests were performed in three areas of the USA, using 1×1 grids of gravity data and 30×30 grids of height data to compute the gravimetric geoid undulation, and GPS/leveled heights to compute the geometric geoid undulation. Using the latter as a control, analyses of the gravimetric undulations indicate that while in areas with smooth terrain no substantial differences occur between the gravity reduction methods, the Moritz–Pellinen (MP) approach is clearly superior to the Vanicek–Martinec (VM) approach in areas of rugged terrain. In theory, downward continuation is a significant aspect of either approach. Numerically, however, based on the test data, neither approach benefited by including this effect in the areas having smooth terrain. On the other hand, in the rugged, mountainous area, the gravimetric geoid based on the VM approach was improved slightly, but with the MP approach it suffered significantly. The latter is attributed to an inability to model the downward continuation of the Bouguer anomaly accurately in rugged terrain. Applying the higher-order, more accurate gravity reduction formulas, instead of their corresponding planar and linear approximations, yielded no improvement in the accuracy of the gravimetric geoid undulation based on the available data.     

Gravity field terrain effect computations by FFT

The widespread availability of detailed gridded topographic and bathymetric data for many areas of the earth has resulted in a need for efficient terrain effect computation techniques, especially for applications in gravity field modelling. Compared to conventional integration techniques, Fourier transform methods provide extremely efficient computations due to the speed of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT. The Fourier techniques rely on linearization and series expansions of the basically unlinear terrain effect integrals, typically involving transformation of the heights/depths and their squares. TheFFT methods will especially be suited for terrain reduction of land gravity data and satellite altimetry geoid data. In the paper the basic formulas will be outlined, and special emphasis will be put on the practial implementation, where a special coarse/detailed grid pair formulation must be used in order to minimize the unavoidable edge effects ofFFT, and the special properties ofFFT are utilized to limit the actual number of data transformations needed. Actual results are presented for gravity and geoid terrain effects in test areas of the USA, Greenland and the North Atlantic. The results are evaluated against a conventional integration program: thus, e.g., in an area of East Greenland (with terrain corrections up to10 mgal), the accuracy ofFFT-computed terrain corrections in actual gravity stations showed anr.m.s. error of0.25 mgal, using height data from a detailed photogrammetric digital terrain model. Similarly, isostatic ocean geoid effects in the Faeroe Islands region were found to be computed withr.m.s. errors around0.03 m     

A new strategy for the atmospheric gravity effect in gravimetric geoid determination

Prior to Stokes integration, the gravitational effect of atmospheric masses must be removed from the gravity anomaly g. One theory for the atmospheric gravity effect on the geoid is the well-known International Association of Geodesy approach in connection with Stokes integral formula. Another strategy is the use of a spherical harmonic representation of the topography, i.e. the use of a global topography computed from a set of spherical harmonics. The latter strategy is improved to account for local information. A new formula is derived by combining the local contribution of the atmospheric effect computed from a detailed digital terrain model and the global contribution computed from a spherical harmonic model of the topography. The new formula is tested over Iran and the results are compared with corresponding results from the old formula which only uses the global information. The results show significant differences. The differences between the two formulas reach 17 cm in a test area in Iran.     

Precise surface topography of the grounded ice ridges at the Ekströmisen, Antarctica, based on several geophysical data sets

As part of the CryoSat Cal/Val activities and the pre-site survey for an ice core drilling contributing to the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS), ground-based kinematic GPS measurements were conducted in early 2007 in the hinterland of the German overwintering station Neumayer (8.25 W,70.65 S). The investigated area comprises the regions of the ice ridges Halvfarryggen and Søråsen, which rise from the Ekströmisen to a maximum of about 760 m surface elevation, and have an areal extent of about 100 km×50 km each. Available digital elevation models (DEMs) from radar altimetry and the Antarctic Digital Database show elevation differences of up to hundreds of meters in this region, which necessitated an accurate survey of the conditions on-site. An improved DEM of the Ekströmisen surroundings is derived by a combination of highly accurate ground-based GPS measurements, satellite derived laser altimetry data (ICESat), airborne radar altimetry (ARA), and radio echo sounding (RES). The DEM presented here achieves a vertical accuracy of about 1.3 m and can be used for improved ice dynamic modelling and mass balance studies.     

High-resolution regional geoid computation without applying Stokes’s formula: a case study of the Iranian geoid

A new theory for high-resolution regional geoid computation without applying Stokess formula is presented. Operationally, it uses various types of gravity functionals, namely data of type gravity potential (gravimetric leveling), vertical derivatives of the gravity potential (modulus of gravity intensity from gravimetric surveys), horizontal derivatives of the gravity potential (vertical deflections from astrogeodetic observations) or higher-order derivatives such as gravity gradients. Its algorithmic version can be described as follows: (1) Remove the effect of a very high degree/order potential reference field at the point of measurement (POM), in particular GPS positioned, either on the Earths surface or in its external space. (2) Remove the centrifugal potential and its higher-order derivatives at the POM. (3) Remove the gravitational field of topographic masses (terrain effect) in a zone of influence of radius r. A proper choice of such a radius of influence is 2r=4×10⁴ km/n, where n is the highest degree of the harmonic expansion. (cf. Nyquist frequency). This third remove step aims at generating a harmonic gravitational field outside a reference ellipsoid, which is an equipotential surface of a reference potential field. (4) The residual gravitational functionals are downward continued to the reference ellipsoid by means of the inverse solution of the ellipsoidal Dirichlet boundary-value problem based upon the ellipsoidal Abel–Poisson kernel. As a discretized integral equation of the first kind, downward continuation is Phillips–Tikhonov regularized by an optimal choice of the regularization factor. (5) Restore the effect of a very high degree/order potential reference field at the corresponding point to the POM on the reference ellipsoid. (6) Restore the centrifugal potential and its higher-order derivatives at the ellipsoidal corresponding point to the POM. (7) Restore the gravitational field of topographic masses ( terrain effect) at the ellipsoidal corresponding point to the POM. (8) Convert the gravitational potential on the reference ellipsoid to geoidal undulations by means of the ellipsoidal Bruns formula. A large-scale application of the new concept of geoid computation is made for the Iran geoid. According to the numerical investigations based on the applied methodology, a new geoid solution for Iran with an accuracy of a few centimeters is achieved.Acknowledgments. The project of high-resolution geoid computation of Iran has been support by National Cartographic Center (NCC) of Iran. The University of Tehran, via grant number 621/3/602, supported the computation of a global geoid solution for Iran. Their support is gratefully acknowledged. A. Ardalan would like to thank Mr. Y. Hatam, and Mr. K. Ghazavi from NCC and Mr. M. Sharifi, Mr. A. Safari, and Mr. M. Motagh from the University of Tehran for their support in data gathering and computations. The authors would like to thank the comments and corrections made by the four reviewers and the editor of the paper, Professor Will Featherstone. Their comments helped us to correct the mistakes and improve the paper.     

A general model for modifying Stokes’ formula and its least-squares solution

Today the combination of Stokes formula and an Earth gravity model (EGM) for geoid determination is a standard procedure. However, the method of modifying Stokes formula varies from author to author, and numerous methods of modification exist. Most methods modify Stokes kernel, but the most widely applied method, the remove compute restore technique, removes the EGM from the gravity anomaly to attain a residual gravity anomaly under Stokes integral, and at least one known method modifies both Stokes kernel and the gravity anomaly. A general model for modifying Stokes formula is presented; it includes most of the well-known techniques of modification as special cases. By assuming that the error spectra of the gravity anomalies and the EGM are known, the optimum model of modification is derived based on the least-squares principle. This solution minimizes the expected mean square error (MSE) of all possible solutions of the general geoid model. A practical formula for estimating the MSE is also presented. The power of the optimum method is demonstrated in two special cases. AcknowledgementsThis paper was partly written whilst the author was a visiting scientist at The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He is indebted to Professor W. Kearsley and his colleagues, and their hospitality is acknowledged.     

A new hybrid geoid model for Japan, GSIGEO2000

 The latest gravimetric geoid model for Japan, JGEOID2000, was successfully combined with the nationwide net of GPS at benchmarks, yielding a new hybrid geoid model for Japan, GSIGEO2000. The least-squares collocation (LSC) method was applied as an interpolation for fitting JGEOID2000 to the GPS/leveling geoid undulations. The GPS/leveling geoid undulation data were reanalyzed in advance, in terms of three-dimensional positions from GPS and orthometric heights from leveling. The new hybrid geoid model is, therefore, compatible with the new Japanese geodetic reference frame. GSIGEO2000 was evaluated internally and independently and the precision was estimated at 4 cm throughout nearly the whole region. Received: 15 October 2001 / Accepted: 27 March 2002 Acknowledgments. Messrs. Toshio Kunimi and Tadashi Saito at the Third Geodetic Division of the Geographical Survey Institute (GSI) mainly carried out the computations of most of the updated leveled heights. With regard to the reanalysis of GPS data, the discussions with Messrs. Yuki Hatanaka and Shoichi Matsumura of GSI were of great help in building the analysis strategy. Messrs. Kazuyuki Tanaka and Hiromi Shigematsu collaborated in the preparatory stages of GPS data computation. The authors' thanks are extended to these colleagues. Some plots were made by GMT software (Wessel and Smith 1991). Correspondence to: Y. Kuroishi     

A computational scheme to model the geoid by the modified Stokes formula without gravity reductions

In a modern application of Stokes formula for geoid determination, regional terrestrial gravity is combined with long-wavelength gravity information supplied by an Earth gravity model. Usually, several corrections must be added to gravity to be consistent with Stokes formula. In contrast, here all such corrections are applied directly to the approximate geoid height determined from the surface gravity anomalies. In this way, a more efficient workload is obtained. As an example, in applications of the direct and first and second indirect topographic effects significant long-wavelength contributions must be considered, all of which are time consuming to compute. By adding all three effects to produce a combined geoid effect, these long-wavelength features largely cancel. The computational scheme, including two least squares modifications of Stokes formula, is outlined, and the specific advantages of this technique, compared to traditional gravity reduction prior to Stokes integration, are summarised in the conclusions and final remarks. AcknowledgementsThis paper was written whilst the author was a visiting scientist at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. The hospitality and fruitful discussions with Professor W. Featherstone and his colleagues are gratefully acknowledged.