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Analyses of a 426-Day Record of Seafloor Gravity and Pressure Time Series in the North Sea

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Abstract

Continuous gravity observations of ocean and solid tides are usually done with land-based gravimeters. In this study, we analyze a 426-day record of time-varying gravity acquired by an ocean-bottom Scintrex spring gravimeter between August 2005 and November 2006 at the Troll A site located in the North Sea at a depth of 303 m. Sea-bottom pressure changes were also recorded in parallel with a Paroscientific quartz pressure sensor. From these data, we show a comparison of the noise level of the seafloor gravimeter with respect to two standard land-based relative gravimeters: a Scintrex CG5 and a GWR Superconducting Gravimeter that were recording at the J9 gravimetric observatory of Strasbourg (France). We also compare the analyzed gravity records with the predicted solid and oceanic tides. The oceanic tides recorded by the seafloor barometer are also analyzed and compared to the predicted ones using FES2014b ocean model. Observed diurnal and semi-diurnal components are in good agreement with FES2014b predictions. Smallest constituents reflect some differences that may be attributed to non-linearity occurring at the Troll A site. Using the barotropic TUGO-m dynamic model of sea-level response to ECMWF atmospheric pressure and winds forcing, we show a good agreement with the detided ocean-bottom pressure residuals. About 4 hPa of standard deviation of remaining sea-bottom pressure are, however, not explained by the TUGO-m dynamic model.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the suggestions of two anonymous reviewers that contributed to significantly improve this manuscript. We also thank David Crossley for his re-reading and suggested corrections to this paper. We are grateful to Glenn Sasagawa as a data contributor and to Ola Eiken for their useful information about the data and about the site measurement. This seafloor dataset was acquired by Scripps, under research contract with Statoil. Statoil is recognized as a sponsor of the data collection, and also for help with connecting cables and recording on the Troll A platform. Historical wind speed data were provided by the Norwegian Meteorological service at http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Hav/Troll_A/ and the wave ocean heights come from radar data recorded on the Troll A platform. The General Mapping Tools (Wessel and Smith 1998) was used for plotting the map.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Physique du Globe de Strasbourg, UMR 7516, Université de Strasbourg/EOST, CNRS, 5 rue Descartes, 67084, Strasbourg, France

    S. Rosat, B. Escot, J. Hinderer & J.-P. Boy

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  1. S. Rosat
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  2. B. Escot
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  3. J. Hinderer
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  4. J.-P. Boy
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Correspondence to S. Rosat.

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Tides and non-tidal loading (Bruno Meurers, David Crossley).

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Rosat, S., Escot, B., Hinderer, J. et al. Analyses of a 426-Day Record of Seafloor Gravity and Pressure Time Series in the North Sea. Pure Appl. Geophys. 175, 1793–1804 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1554-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1554-6

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