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NGS, NASA Offer New Process for Height Measurement

Friday, January 10, 2020

At the 2019 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California, NGS and NASA presented a poster titled "High-Resolution Temporal Geoid Change Modeling in Alaska for a New Geopotential Datum."" The poster showcases a new process for calculating dynamic geoid models when satellite-based gravity data is insufficient. Ice mass loss from mountain glaciers in Alaska deforms the geoid model of the Earth's surface at scales too small to be seen by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites - the primary source of geoid rates. Poster authors used special NASA Goddard Space Flight Center GRACE mass trend solutions to demonstrate the existence and effects of these concentrated errors of omission, which can approach +/- 1 millimeter per year. To mitigate these errors, the authors combined a GRACE-based dynamic geoid model with a high-resolution model of ice mass loss based on airborne and satellite altimetry. This enhanced model will be validated observationally as part of future Geoid Monitoring Service (GeMS) geodetic campaigns.

For more information, contact: Ryan Hardy