The session is dedicated to aspects of high accuracy terrestrial gravity observations.
Long term monitoring of geophysical and other processes requires a solid reference to ensure the stability of gravity meters. Therefore, the interpretation of gravity times series depends on the realization of a global absolute gravity reference system, which relies on distributed international and regional comparisons and the setup of reference stations. By this, a long term comparison function for the validation of absolute meters, ensuring their traceability, will be established. Any contributions to these topics are invited. To make such a system accessible for the user, updates of first order gravity networks realized on the level of national infrastructure are necessary and within the scope of the session.
Besides the establishment of the gravity reference system, advances in absolute gravimetry are important. Here contributions regarding the assessment of the uncertainty budget and systematic instrumental effects as well as the development and deployment of new technologies like quantum sensors are welcome.
Monitoring of long term gravity changes yields many applications, e.g. in tectonics and land uplift, glacial isostatic adjustment and reveals trends in continental hydrology, which are also subject of the session.
Finally, the session addresses high resolution temporal gravity changes from superconducting and absolute gravimeters and its interpretation, from the Earth tides to local water storage changes and geophysical applications, e.g. geothermal fields, volcano monitoring, study of tidal and non-tidal loading effects, comparison with satellite gravity models and models for continental hydrology.