Refinement of gravimetric geoid model by incorporating terrestrial, marine, and airborne gravity using KTH method

Abstract

We compute a new gravimetric geoid model for Peninsular Malaysia (PMGG2020) based on the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) method. The PMGG2020 was computed from 8474 terrestrial gravity points, satellite altimetry-derived gravity anomaly (DTU17), 24,855 airborne gravity data, and the TanDEM-X Digital Elevation Model. All the gravity datasets were combined and gridded onto a 1-min resolution using the 3D Least Square Collocation (LSC) method with EIGEN-6C4 as the reference field. GO_CONS_GCF_2_SPW_R4 was used to provide long wavelengths of gravity field up to 130 maximum degrees and order in the geoid computation. Based on an evaluation using 173 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-levelling points distributed over Peninsular Malaysia, the precision of the PMGG2020 was 0.058 m. It is almost identical to the accuracy of the official Peninsular Malaysia gravimetric geoid, WMG03A. Using airborne gravity, the precision of PMGG2020 showed a significant improvement of ~4 cm over the existing KTH-derived geoid model, PMSGM2014. These results highlight the significant effect of airborne gravity data on the accuracy of the geoid model.