The gains of small circular, square and rectangular filters for surface waves on a sphere

Abstract

Meissl has derived weighting functions for converting point gravity anomaly degree variances into mean anomaly variances over a circular cap on a sphere. If the cap is sufficiently small so that the cap on a sphere degenerates into a circle on a plane, the problem may be considered that of the gain of a circular filter for a surface wave whose wave number depends on the spherical harmonic degree. The Meissl weights then become replaced by diffraction integrals of optical physics. The expected gain for a square filter for waves coming from random directions is derived and shown to be close to the gain of a circular filter with the same area. The expected gains and cross-gains for rectangular filters are also derived. When weighted by an anomaly degree variance model, these gains and cross-gains can be used to determine rectangular anomaly variances and covariances for arbitrary bandwidths. Using the Tscherning-Rapp model, analytic gravity anomaly variances and covariances are calculated for 1°×1° blocks.