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3D finite-element modeling of Earth induced electromagnetic field and its potential applications for geomagnetic satellites

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Abstract

The accumulated large amount of satellite magnetic data strengthen our capability of resolving the electrical conductivity of Earth’s mantle. To invert these satellite magnetic data, accurate and efficient forward modeling solvers are needed. In this study, a new finite-element based forward modeling solver is developed to accurately and efficiently compute the induced electromagnetic field for a realistic 3D Earth. Firstly, the nodal-based finite element method with linear shape function on tetrahedral grid is used to assemble the final system of linear equations for the magnetic vector potential and electric scalar potential. The FGMRES solver with algebraic multigrid (AMG) preconditioner is used to quickly solve for the final system of linear equations. The weighted moving least-square method is employed to accurately recover the electromagnetic field from the numerical solutions of magnetic vector and electric scalar potentials. Furthermore, a local mesh refinement technique is employed to improve the accuracy of estimated electromagnetic field. At the end, two synthetic models are used to verify the accuracy and efficiency of our newly developed forward modeling solver. A realistic 3D Earth model is used to simulate the induced magnetic field at 450 and 200 km altitudes which are the planned flying altitudes of Macau’s geomagnetic satellites. The simulation indicates that (1) amplitude of the mantle-induced magnetic field can reach 10–30 nT at 450 km altitude, which is 10–30% of the primary magnetic field. The induced magnetic field at 200 km altitude has larger amplitudes. These mantle-induced magnetic fields can be measured by Macau geomagnetic satellites; (2) amplitude of the ocean-induced magnetic field can reach 5–30 nT at satellite altitudes, which needs to be carefully considered in the interpretation of satellite magnetic data. We are confident that our newly developed forward modeling solver will become a key tool for interpreting satellite magnetic data.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks are given to Zdeněk MARTINEC from Dublin Institute for Advanced studies for kindly providing analytic solutions and Anna KELBERT from United States Geological Survey for kindly offering benchmark solutions for comparison. We thank Chaojian CHEN from ETH Zurich and Jianping LI from Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey of China Geological Survey for their helpful discussion. We would like to thank the responsible editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which have greatly improved the quality of this paper. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72088101, 41922027, 41830107, 41811530010), Innovation-Driven Project of Central South University (Grant No. 2020CX0012), the National Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China (Grant No. 2019JJ20032), Macau Foundation and the pre-research project on Civil Aerospace Technologies funded by China’s National Space Administration (Grant Nos. D020308, D020303).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geosciences and Info-Physics, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Hongbo Yao, Zhengyong Ren & Jingtian Tang

  2. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Yufeng Lin

  3. College of Geo-exploration Sciences & Technology, Jilin University, Changchun, 130026, China

    Changchun Yin

  4. Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Xiangyun Hu

  5. School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Qinghua Huang

  6. State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau S. A. R, 999078, China

    Keke Zhang

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  1. Hongbo Yao
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Correspondence to Zhengyong Ren or Jingtian Tang.

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Yao, H., Ren, Z., Tang, J. et al. 3D finite-element modeling of Earth induced electromagnetic field and its potential applications for geomagnetic satellites. Sci. China Earth Sci. 64, 1798–1812 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9786-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9786-9

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