Regional evaluation of global geopotential models and three types of digital elevation models with ground-based gravity and GNSS/levelling data using several techniques over Sudan

Abstract

To evaluate the performance of the global geopotential models (GGMs) in a more unbiased way, ground-based gravity and GNSS/levelling datasets are highly required. In this study, the eight latest releases of the satellite-only and combined GGMs are evaluated on the regional scale using the available terrestrial gravity and GNSS/Levelling data over Sudan, considering the spectral consistency issue by applying the spectral enhancement method (SEM). The evaluation process consists of three stages: firstly, the eight GGMs are evaluated globally with each other by using different degree variances in terms of geoid heights, gravity anomalies, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR); secondly, the GGMs are compared against the Earth Gravitational Model 2008 (EGM2008) on a regional scale over Sudan; thirdly, apply the SEM strategy by incorporating high (SEM_WITHOUT_RTM technique) and very-high (SEM technique) frequencies of the gravity field spectrum from the EGM2008 and high-resolution residual terrain model (RTM), respectively. For reliable robustness of the latter evaluation process, three different DEMs are used, namely, SRTM30, ASTER30, and GTOPO30. Our findings on the evaluation process using SEM_WITHOUT_RTM technique show improved gravity anomalies solutions regarding differences of standard deviations (STD) from 19–20.7 mGal to about 14 mGal. When applying the SEM technique, more improvements are achieved, providing STD differences in gravity anomalies and geoid heights of about 12 mGal and 45 cm, respectively. Among the three applied DEMs, it has been found that despite the slight refinements, the ASTER30 and GTOPO30 models show better performance than the SRTM30 model.