Regional geoid improvement over the Antarctic peninsula utilizing airborne gravity data

Abstract

We present an improved quasigeoid of the Palmer Land Region, Antarctic Peninsula, derived from recent aerogravimetry profiles provided by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Special focus is given to the treatment of the ice layer covering the bedrock topography, the latter one being regarded as the boundary surface. The remove-compute-restore technique (RCR) with least-squares collocation (LSC) and a point mass modeling, respectively, are applied and compared. In addition to previous studies, an alternative strategy regarding downward continuation has been introduced. Furthermore, the Residual Terrain Model (RTM) has been enhanced to incorporate the individual densities of water, ice and bedrock. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.