Geoid Determination Through Ellipsoidal Stokes Boundary-Value Problem by Splitting Its Solution to the Low-Degree and the High-Degree Parts

Abstract

The ellipsoidal Stokes boundary-value problem is used to compute the geoidal heights. The low degree part of the geoidal heights can be represented more accurately by Global Geopotential Models (GGM). So the disturbing potential is splitted into a low-degree reference potential and a higher-degree potential. To compute the low-degree part, the global geopotential model is used, and for the high-degree part, the solution of the ellipsoidal Stokes boundary-value problem in the form of the surface integral is used. We present an effective method to remove the singularity of the high-degree of the spherical and ellipsoidal Stokes functions around the computational point. Finally, the numerical results of solving the ellipsoidal Stokes boundary-value problem and the difference between the high-degree part of the solution of the ellipsoidal Stokes boundary-value problem and that of the spherical Stokes boundary-value problem is presented.