A numerical study of the divergence of spherical harmonic series of the gravity and height anomalies at the earth's surface

The problem of the divergence of the geopotential spherical harmonic series at the earth's surface is investigated from a numerical, rather than a theoretical, approach. A representative model of the earth's potential is devised on the basis of a density layer, which, in the spherical approximation, generates a gravity field whose harmonic constituents decay according to an accepted degree variance model. This field, expanded to degree 300, and a topographic surface specified to a corresponding resolution of 67 km are used to compute the differences between truncated inner and outer series of the gravity and height anomalies at the surface of the earth model. Up to degree 300, these differences attain RMS values from 0.33 μgal to 86 μgal for the gravity anomaly and from 0.32 μm to 410 μm for the height anomaly, in areas ranging respectively from near the equator to the vicinity of the pole. In addition to these values, there is an expected truncation effect, caused by the neglect of higher degree components of the inner series, of about 30 mgal and 36 cm, respectively. The field is then subjected to a Gaussian filter which effectively cuts off information at degree 300 (at the 5% level). The RMS error to degree 300 is thereby reduced by factors of 10 to 20, with a concomitant reduction in the truncation effect to about 0.3 mgal and 0.7 cm.