Effect of the Mean Dynamic Topography on the Geoid-to-Quasigeoid Separation Offshore

It is commonly acknowledged that offshore the quasigeoid very closely coincides with the geoid. Nevertheless, the numerical assessment supporting this assumption has not yet been provided. Moreover, the rigorous definition of the quasigeoid surface and consequently the geoid-to-quasigeoid separation offshore is not given in geodetic literature. To address these issues, we define in this study the quasigeoid surface offshore in the context of the mean sea level. We then derive the spectral expressions for computing the geoid-to-quasigeoid separation offshore and apply these expressions estimate the vertical separation between the geoid and the quasigeoid over the world's oceans and marginal seas using the global dataset of the DTU15 mean dynamic topography. By taking the analogy of defining the geoid-to-quasigeoid separation inland by means of the disturbing potential differences of values evaluated on the geoid and at the topographic surface, the computation offshore is practically realized from values of the disturbing potential on the geoid and at the mean sea surface. Our result shows that the geoid-to-quasigeoid separation offshore is completely negligible, with most of the values within the interval ±0.3 mm.