Fri Apr 10, F. Flechtner
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Rudenko, Sergei, Dettmering, Denise, Lemoine, Jean–Michel, Bloßfeld, Mathis, and Zeitlhöfler, Julian, 2026. Impact of Earth's Mean Time–Variable Gravity Field Models on Precise Orbits of Altimetry Satellites. Surveys in Geophysics, .
• from the NASA Astrophysics Data System • by the DOI System •
@ARTICLE{2026SGeo..tmp...33R,
author = {{Rudenko}, Sergei and {Dettmering}, Denise and {Lemoine}, Jean-Michel and {Blo{\ss}feld}, Mathis and {Zeitlh{\"o}fler}, Julian},
title = "{Impact of Earth's Mean Time-Variable Gravity Field Models on Precise Orbits of Altimetry Satellites}",
journal = {Surveys in Geophysics},
keywords = {Altimetry satellites, Earth's gravity field, Time-variable gravity, Precise orbit determination, Satellite Laser Ranging, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason},
year = 2026,
month = mar,
abstract = "{Gravitational forces are the major forces acting on near-Earth orbiting
(e.g., altimetry) satellites. We perform a review of Earth's
mean time-variable gravity (TVG) field models developed in the
past 23 years (2000-2023). This includes the models developed
using CHAMP, GRACE, GRACE-FO, GOCE, SLR (Satellite Laser
Ranging), and DORIS measurements. Some of these models contain
just secular terms, while more recent models include also
periodic (annual and semi-annual) variations of the Earth's
gravity. We show the impact of these models on precise orbit
determination (POD) of selected altimetry satellites, namely
TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, and Jason-3 at the time
interval from 1992 to 2023. The impact of these models is
assessed for different orbit parameters as well as the root-
mean-square (RMS) and mean values of SLR observation residuals
and orbit differences. Furthermore, the impact of these models
on altimetry (single- and multi-satellite) sea surface height
crossover differences, radial errors, geographically correlated
mean errors, and their trends is analyzed. We have found that
the CNES RL05MF model derived using data of 1985-2022 performs
best among the models tested in this study, particularly for the
Jason-3 time span (2016-2023). Using this model reduces the RMS
values of SLR observation residuals from 2.56 cm (for pre-CHAMP
model GRIM5-C1) to 1.48 cm for this satellite. The RMS values of
orbit differences in the radial direction fit within 0.7-0.8 cm
for most recent TVG models, while using old GRIM5-C1 would
result in 1.9 cm differences. It is important to reprocess
regularly Earth's TVG data covering the longest time span to
minimize extrapolation errors of the models.}",
doi = {10.1007/s10712-026-09942-x},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026SGeo..tmp...33R},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
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