Evaluation of the Global Altimetric Marine Gravity Field DTU15: Using Marine Gravity and GOCE Satellite Gravity

Global marine gravity field modelling using satellite altimetry has been undergoing constant improvement since the launch of Cryosat-2 mission in 2010. With its 369 day-repeat Cryosat-2 provides one repeat of geodetic mission data with 8 km global resolution each year. Together with the completion of the Jason-1 end-of-life geodetic mission in 2011 and 2012, these new satellites has provided more than 4 times three times as much geodetic missions altimetric sea surface height observations than ever before.

The higher precision of these new sea surface height observations compared with observations from ERS-1 and Geosat results in a dramatic improvement of the shorter wavelength of the gravity field (12–20 km) resulting in much favorable comparison with marine gravity. The pan-Arctic altimetric gravity field now surpassing 2008 Arctic Gravity Field project derived from multiple gravity field sources.

A direct comparison between Arctic marine gravity fields and independent gravity field from the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer to degree and order 280 confirms this.