High-harmonic geoid signatures related to glacial isostatic adjustment and their detectability by GOCE

The Earth’s asthenosphere and lower continental crust can regionally have viscosities that are one to several orders of magnitude smaller than typical mantle viscosities. As a consequence, such shallow low-viscosity layers could induce high-harmonic (spherical harmonics 50–200) gravity and geoid anomalies due to remaining isostasy deviations following Late-Pleistocene glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Such high-harmonic geoid and gravity signatures would depend also on the detailed ice and meltwater loading distribution and history.ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite mission, planned for launch in Summer 2008, is designed to map the quasi-static geoid with centimeter accuracy and gravity anomalies with milligal accuracy at a resolution of 100 km or better. This might offer the possibility of detecting gravity and geoid effects of low-viscosity shallow earth layers and differences of the effects of various Pleistocene ice decay scenarios. For example, our predictions show that for a typical low-viscosity crustal zone GOCE should be able to discern differences between ice-load histories down to length scales of about 150 km.One of the major challenges in interpreting such high-harmonic, regional-scale, geoid signatures in GOCE solutions will be to discriminate GIA-signatures from various other solid-earth contributions. It might be of help here that the high-harmonic geoid and gravity signatures form quite characteristic 2D patterns, depending on both ice load and low-viscosity zone model parameters.     

横向非均匀地球负荷问题的CLFE有限元算法的有效性

本文设计了三个数值算例分别模拟径向分层黏弹地球对二阶球谐负荷、均厚圆盘负荷和全球末次冰期真实冰负荷的响应.利用耦合位扰动Laplace方程的三维有限元法(CLFE),计算出地球表面的位移、大地水准面的变化、冰后海平面变化和这些量的现今变化速率,并将其结果与传统谱方法的结果进行对比.结果表明,两种方法的结果总体上表现出良好的一致性,因此,CLFE方法被证实是正确的、有效的、能被用于研究地幔横向非均匀性的影响.值得注意的是,新的方法完全没有横向非均匀小扰动假设的限制.     

Constraints on Glacial Isostatic Adjustment from GOCE and Sea Level Data

Current constraints on the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) process are mainly provided by relative sea-level data and GPS measurements. Due to a lack of resolving power in the shallow earth (down to about 200 km), these data sets only provide weak constraints on the shallow viscosity structure and the thickness of the lithosphere. Future high-resolution gravity data, as expected from ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) launched on March 17, 2009, are predicted to provide additional information on the shallow earth, more specifically the viscosity structure. Here we present an overview of recent developments in extracting information on rheology and stratification of the shallow earth from high-resolution quasi-steady gravity and geoid data to be obtained from GOCE.