Inter-comparison of ground gravity and vertical height measurements at collocated IGETS stations

Séverine Rosat (1) , J.-P Boy (1) , J. Bogusz (2) , A. Klos (2)

1 IPGS - Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg
2 Centre of Applied Geomatics [Warsaw]

Vertical displacements and time-varying gravity fluctuations are representative of various deformation mechanisms of the Earth occurring at different spatial and temporal scales. The inter-comparison of ground-gravity measurements with vertical surface displacements enables to estimate the transfer function of the Earth at various timescales related to the rheological properties of the Earth. In this paper, we estimate the gravity-to-height changes ratio at seasonal timescales due mostly to hydrological mass variabilities. We investigate this ratio at nine sites where Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Superconducting Gravimeter continuous measurements are collocated. Predicted gravity-to-height change ratios for a hydrological model are around-2 nm/s²/mm when there is no local mass effect. This is in agreement with theoretical modeling for an elastic Earth's model. Spectral analysis of vertical displacement and surface gravimetric time-series show a coherency larger than 50% at seasonal timescales at most sites. The obtained gravity-to-height change ratios range between-5 and-2 nm/s²/mm for stations Lhasa, Metsahovi, Ny-Alesund, Onsala, Wettzell and Yebes. At Canberra and Sutherland, this ratio is close to zero. Finally, at Strasbourg site the coherency is low and the ratio is positive because of local mass effects affecting gravimetric records.

Mots clés: Vertical deformation; surface gravity variations; hydrological loading; GNSS; Superconducting Gravimeters; Earth's transfer function

Domaines: Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]

Séverine Rosat, J.-P Boy, J. Bogusz, A. Klos. Inter-comparison of ground gravity and vertical height measurements at collocated IGETS stations. International Association of Geodesy Symposia, 2020. ⟨hal-02749872⟩