High-resolution combined global gravity field modelling – The d/o 5,400 XGM2020 model

Within this contribution we present the new experimental combined global gravity field model XGM2020. Key feature of this model is the rigorous combination of the latest GOCO06s satellite-only model with global terrestrial gravity anomalies on normal equation level, up to d/o 2159, using individual observation weights. To provide a maximum resolution, the model is further extended to d/o 5400 by applying block diagonal techniques.

To attain the high resolution, the incorporated terrestrial dataset is composed of three different data sources: Over land 15´ gravity anomalies (by courtesy of NGA) are augmented with topographic information, and over the oceans gravity anomalies derived from altimetry are used.  Corresponding normal equations are computed from these data sets either as full or as block diagonal systems.

Special emphasis is given to the novel processing techniques needed for very high-resolution gravity field modelling. As such the spheroidal harmonics play a central role, as well as the stable calculation of associated Legendre polynomials up to very high d/o. Also, a new technique for the optimal low-pass filtering of terrestrial gravity datasets is presented.

On the computational side, solving dense normal equation systems up to d/o 2159 means dealing with matrices of the size of about 158TB. Handling with matrices of such a size is very demanding, even for today’s largest supercomputers. Thus, sophisticated parallelized algorithms with focus on load balancing are crucial for a successful and efficient calculation.