Prediction of vertical deflections from high-degree spherical harmonic synthesis and residual terrain model data |
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| Authors: | Christian Hirt |
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| Institution: | 1. Western Australian Centre for Geodesy, The Institute for Geoscience Research, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U 1987, Perth, WA, 6845, Australia
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| Abstract: | This study demonstrates that in mountainous areas the use of residual terrain model (RTM) data significantly improves the
accuracy of vertical deflections obtained from high-degree spherical harmonic synthesis. The new Earth gravitational model
EGM2008 is used to compute vertical deflections up to a spherical harmonic degree of 2,160. RTM data can be constructed as
difference between high-resolution Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) elevation data and the terrain model DTM2006.0
(a spherical harmonic terrain model that complements EGM2008) providing the long-wavelength reference surface. Because these
RTM elevations imply most of the gravity field signal beyond spherical harmonic degree of 2,160, they can be used to augment
EGM2008 vertical deflection predictions in the very high spherical harmonic degrees. In two mountainous test areas—the German
and the Swiss Alps—the combined use of EGM2008 and RTM data was successfully tested at 223 stations with high-precision astrogeodetic
vertical deflections from recent zenith camera observations (accuracy of about 0.1 arc seconds) available. The comparison
of EGM2008 vertical deflections with the ground-truth astrogeodetic observations shows root mean square (RMS) values (from
differences) of 3.5 arc seconds for ξ and 3.2 arc seconds for η, respectively. Using a combination of EGM2008 and RTM data for the prediction of vertical deflections considerably reduces
the RMS values to the level of 0.8 arc seconds for both vertical deflection components, which is a significant improvement
of about 75%. Density anomalies of the real topography with respect to the residual model topography are one factor limiting
the accuracy of the approach. The proposed technique for vertical deflection predictions is based on three publicly available
data sets: (1) EGM2008, (2) DTM2006.0 and (3) SRTM elevation data. This allows replication of the approach for improving the
accuracy of EGM2008 vertical deflection predictions in regions with a rough topography or for improved validation of EGM2008
and future high-degree spherical harmonic models by means of independent ground truth data. |
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