Extraction of geoid heights from shipborne GNSS measurements along the Weser River in Northern Germany

Abstract

In-land geoid models rely on several measuring techniques. The quality of those models is directly related to the spatial resolution of the measurement data. Occasionally, a local geoid model does not cover the coastal area at all and a local marine geoid simply does not exist. ShipborneGNSS measurementsmay provide away of overcoming this problem in coastal areas. However, several corrections to the raw measurements must be applied in order to account for systematic effects induced by ship dynamics and other static and dynamic impacts from tides, atmospheric pressure or wind stress. This paper presents the theoretical background for the method and the results of a case study in the estuary of the Weser River in Germany. A series of GNSS measurements were carried out aboard a ship and the approximate geoid height along the river was derived. For accuracy assessments of this method, the resultswere compared to the German Combined QuasiGeoid 2011 (GCG2011). The results are very promising and indicate the ability to extract geoid heights from shipborne GNSS measurements.