On the non-uniqueness of local quasi-geoids computed from terrestrial gravity anomalies

Abstract

We consider the problem of local (quasi-)geoid modelling from terrestrial gravity anomalies. Whereas this problem is uniquely solvable (up to spherical harmonic degree one) if gravity anomalies are globally available, the problem is non-unique if gravity anomalies are only available within a local area, which is the typical situation in local/ regional gravity field modelling. We derive a mathematical description of the kernel of the gravity anomaly operator. The non-uniqueness can be removed using external height anomaly information, e.g., provided by GPS-levelling. The corresponding problem is formulated as a Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation. The existence and uniqueness of the solution of the Cauchy problem is guaranteed by the Cauchy-Kowalevskaya theorem. We propose several numerical procedures to compute the solution of the Cauchy problem from given differences between gravimetric and geometric height anomalies. We apply the numerical techniques to real data over the Netherlands and Germany. We show that we can compute a unique quasi-geoid from observed gravimetric and geometric height anomalies, which agree with the data within the expected noise level. We conclude that observed differences between gravimetric height anomalies and geometric height anomalies derived from GPS and levelling cannot only be attributed to systematic errors in the data sets, but are also caused by the intrinsic non-uniqueness of the problem of local quasi-geoid modelling from gravity anomalies. Hence, GPS-levelling data are necessary to get a unique solution, which also implies that they should not be used to validate local quasi-geoid solutions computed on the basis of gravity anomalies. © Springer-Verlag 2007.