Determination of atmospheric influence on high-accuracy gravity measurements with elastic earth models

The investigation is concerned with the calculation of the total atmospheric contribution to variations of the gravity field. The relevant components are the free-air, the deformation and the air-mass contributions. The free-air and deformation contributions are calculated by means of a plane, compressible, elastic earth model. For the calculation of the air-mass contribution, a simple atmosphere model developed from the U.S. Standard Atmosphere 1976 (NOAA, 1976) and synoptic meteorological data are used. The objective is the reduction of high-accuracy gravity measurements recorded by the super-conducting gravimeter formerly located at the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam. A comparison between the residual after reduction with the theoretical model considered here and the residual after reduction with an alternative method is used for an assessment of the quality of the reduction methods.