The influence of barometric‐pressure variations on gravity

Abstract

Summary. The superconducting gravimeter has been used to measure the influence of barometric pressure on gravity in the frequency range 0.1–10 cycles/day. These measurements show that the incoherent barometric fluctuations are the major cause of random fluctuations in local gravity and account for much of the ‘noise’ on our gravimeter records. A simple model has been constructed which adequately explains the response of gravity to the local pressure fluctuations. These measurements also show a response to the global atmospheric tides at S1 and S2 which is much larger than the response to local fluctuations. Although this behaviour is most likely due to the response of the world‐wide oceans to the atmospheric tides, no theoretical model has yet been constructed. Copyright © 1977, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved