Bathymetry inversion using the deflection of the vertical:A case study in South China Sea

The deflection of the vertical is one of the essential products of altimetry.However,unlike gravity and vertical gravity gradients,it is seldom used in bathymetry inversion.In this study,an algorithm for bathymetry inversion using the deflection of the vertical is proposed.First,we separately derive the formulas for the bathymetry inversion from the north and east components of the vertical deflection and introduce the data processing.Then a local area in the South China Sea is selected as an example to test the method.The bathymetry inversion based on gravity anomaly is also conducted for comparison.Assuming the ship-borne depths are the true values,the error standard deviations(STDs)of the bathymetry derived by north and east components of the vertical deflection are 156.64 m and 165.57 m,respectively.It indicates that the north component has a better performance in bathymetry inversion than the east component.The inversion results from the combination of both components show a higher accuracy of bathymetry than that from a single component.The difference between the error STD of the combination results and that of the gravity anomaly is less than 0.2 m.The experiment’s results also show that the precision of the derived bathymetry can be improved if the parameters of linear regression are adjusted according to water depths.In summary,among the gravity field products used in this study,the gravity anomaly yielded the best performance in the bathymetry inversion.However,since additional data and computation time are required to derive gravity anomalies from altimetric observations,the vertical defections can still be used as supplements,especially in areas where accurate vertical deflections exist.

Route Height Connection Across the Sea by Using the Vertical Deflections and Ellipsoidal Height Data

Distance between the main land and island is so long that it is very difficult to precisely connect the height datum across the sea with the traditional method like the trigonometric leveling, or it is very expensive and takes long time to implement the height transfer with the geopotential technique. We combine the data of GPS surveying, astro-geodesy and EGM2008 to precisely connect the orthometric height across the sea with the improved astronomical leveling method in the paper. The Qiongzhou Strait is selected as the test area for the height connection over the sea. We precisely determine the geodetic latitudes, longitudes, heights and deflections of the vertical for four points on both sides across the strait. Modeled deflections of the vertical along the height connecting routes over the sea are determined with EGM2008 model based on the geodetic positions and heights of the sea segmentation points from DNSC08MSS model. Differences of the measured and modeled deflections of the vertical are calculated at four points on both sides and linearly change along the route. So the deflections of the vertical along the route over the sea can be improved by the linear interpolation model. The results are also in accord with those of trigonometirc levelings. The practical case shows that we can precisely connect the orthometric height across the Qiongzhou Strait to satisfy the requirement of order 3 leveling network of China. The method is very efficient to precisely connect the height datum across the sea along the route up to 80 km.

The ellipsoidal corrections for boundary value problems of deflection of the vertical with ellipsoid boundary

The boundary value problem of deflections of vertical with ellipsoid boundary is studied in the paper. Based on spherical harmonic series, the ellipsoidal corrections for the boundary value problem are derived so that it can be well solved. In addition, an imitation arithmetic is given for examining the accuracies of solutions for the boundary value problem as well as its spherical approximation problem, and the computational results illustrate that the boundary value problem has higher accuracy than its spherical approximation problem if deflection of the vertical are measured on geoid.

Prediction of Gravity Anomalies Over the South China and Philippine Seas from Multi-satellite Altimeter Sea Surface Heights

t Gravity anomalies on a2.5 ×2.5 arc-minute grid in a non-tidal system were derived over the South China and Philippine Seas from multi-satellite altimetry data. North and east components of deflections of the vertical were computed from altimeter-derived sea surface heights at crossover locations, and gridded onto a 2.5 × 2.5 arc-minute resolution grid. EGM96-derived components of deflections of the vertical and gravity anomalies gridded into 2.5 × 2.5 arc-minute resolutions were then used as reference global geopotential model quantities in a remove-restore procedure to implement the Inverse Vening Meinesz formula via the 1D-FFT technique to predict the gravity anomalies over the South China and Philippine Seas from the gridded altimeter-derived components of deflections of the vertical. Statistical comparisons between the altimeter-derived and the shipboard gravity anomalies showed that there is a root-mean-square agreement of 5.7 mgals between them.

Determination of Geoid over South China Sea and Philippine Sea from Multi-satellite Altimetry Data

A new computational procedure for derivation of marine geoid on a 2.5′×2.5′grid in a non-tidal system over the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea from multi-satellite altimeter sea surface heights is discussed. Single-and dual-satellite crossovers were performed, and components of deflections of the vertical were determined at the crossover positions using Sand-well's computational theory, and gridded onto a 2.5′×2.5′resolution grid by employing the Shepard's interpolation procedure. 2.5′×2.5′grid of EGM96-derived components of deflections of the vertical and geoid heights were then used as reference global geopotential model quantities in a remove-restore procedure to implement the Molodensky-like formula via 1D-FFT technique to predict the geoid heights over the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea from the gridded altimeter-derived components of deflec-tions of the vertical. Statistical comparisons between the altimeter-and the EGM96- derived geoid heights showed that there was a root-mean-square agreement of ±0.35 m between them in a region of less tectonically active geological structures. However, over areas of tectonically active structures such as the Philippine trench, differences of about -19.9 m were obtained.

High Precision Vertical Deflection Over China Marginal Sea and Global Sea Derived from Multi-Satellite Altimeter

On the basis of gravity field model （EIGEN_CG01C）, together with multi-altimeter data, the improved deflection of the vertical gridded in 2＇×2＇ in China marginal sea and gridded in 5＇×5＇ in the global sea was determined by using the weighted method of along-track least squares, and the accuracy is better than 1.2^# in China marginal sea. As for the quality of the deflection of the vertical, it meets the challenge for the gravity field of high resolution and accuracy, it shows that, compared with the shipboard gravimetry in the sea, the accuracy of the gravity anomalies computed with the marine deflection of the vertical by inverse Vening-Meinesz formula is 7.75 m.s ^-2.