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The Earth gravity field in the time of satellites

  • Geodesy and Geomatics to the edge
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Abstract

Physical geodesy is by definition the science which studies and calculates the Earth’s gravity field and its physical form. Satellite physical geodesy exploits satellite techniques to solve the problems established in physical geodesy. During the second half of the twentieth century, satellite techniques allowed to make outstanding advances in the knowledge of the gravity field of our planet, contributing to the estimation of more and more accurate geoid models, at higher and higher spatial and temporal resolution. In this way, satellite geodesy missions indeed enabled scientists to gain better knowledge of the shape of the Earth, of fundamental geophysical phenomena, of the shape of the oceans surface, of sea currents, of ice sheets and of climatological phenomena.

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Notes

  1. The spherical harmonic model of the Earth's gravitational potential EGM2008 was estimated by least squares combination of the ITG-GRACE03S gravitational model and gravitational information obtained from a global set of mean free-air gravity anomalies given on a 5 arc-minute equiangular grid. This grid was estimated by merging terrestrial, altimetry-derived, and airborne gravity data. EGM2008 is complete to degree and order 2159, plus additional coefficients up to degree 2190 and order 2159. Over areas having good gravity data coverage, the discrepancies between EGM2008 geoid undulations and GPS/Levelling derived undulations are on the order of ±5 to ±10 cm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DICA, Geodesy and Geomatics, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Riccardo Barzaghi, Federica Migliaccio, Mirko Reguzzoni & Alberta Albertella

Authors
  1. Riccardo Barzaghi
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  2. Federica Migliaccio
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  3. Mirko Reguzzoni
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  4. Alberta Albertella
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Riccardo Barzaghi.

Additional information

Peer reviewed version of the paper presented at conference on Geodesy and Geomatics held at Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome on June 3, 2014.

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Barzaghi, R., Migliaccio, F., Reguzzoni, M. et al. The Earth gravity field in the time of satellites. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 26 (Suppl 1), 13–23 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-015-0382-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-015-0382-9

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