Disturbing potential and its geometrical properties

Abstract

Disturbing potential is probably the most crucial quantity in gravity field modelling. Usually, the disturbing potential is converted into a geoid height or height anomaly and presented as a contour map of a geoid or quasigeoid. In our contribution we present a spatial geometry of the equipotential surfaces of the disturbing potential around the Earth. The models presented are solutions of a mixed boundary value problem; they combine the Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions, and are solved using the Finite Element Method. The boundary values are generated from an EGM2008 geopotential model. However, the combination of the terrestrial measurement and the satellite gravity gradiometry-originated data can be used in the future. Therefore this work can be seen as a preliminary study before the exploitation of the actual gravity gradiometry data. The disturbing potential model is presented in the form of a 3D model up to an altitude of 20000 km above the Earth's surface.