Improvement of GOCE-Based Global Geopotential Models for Gravimetric Geoid Modeling in Turkey

Abstract

This study investigates the contribution of global geopotential models which are calculated with GOCE satellite mission data to the improvement of gravimetric geoid models in Turkey. In this context, direct (DIR), time-wise (TIM), space-wise (SPW), and GOCO satellite-only model series were considered. The research was carried out in two parts. The first part includes the validation of models in each series at 100 homogeneously distributed GNSS/leveling stations over the country utilizing spectrally enhanced geoid heights to determine the best performing model and its optimal expansion degree. According to obtained statistics, the TIM-R6 model was selected as the best model with an optimal expansion degree of 204. In the second part, the TIM-R6 model up to 204 degree/order was linearly blended with EGM2008 to obtain an improved version up to 360 degree/order of expansion. To clarify the contribution of the linearly blended model to the improvement of the regional geoid model, the gravimetric geoid models were computed adopting TIM-R6 up to 204 degree/order and its improved version up to 360 degree/order as reference models. To further emphasize the contribution of the GOCE mission’s data, the gravimetric geoid computations were repeated relying on EGM2008 up to 204 and 360 degrees of expansions, since EGM2008 does not contain GOCE data. In addition, we computed gravimetric geoids based on another combined model that includes GOCE mission data, the EIGEN-6C4 model. The calculated regional geoids were compared to each other and validated using GNSS/leveling data set. The obtained results revealed a ∼23% improvement in regional geoid model accuracy when the blended GOCE-based geopotential model was used as a reference. In addition, the results of this study presented the significance of GOCE contribution to mapping the gravity field in Turkey. The best accuracy obtained from this study was 7.7 cm for the Turkey geoid.