O. de Viron

Characterizing long-time scale hydrological effects on gravity for improved distinction of tectonic signals

The influence of the hydrological noise on repeated gravity measurements has been investigated on the basis of the time series of 18 superconducting gravimeters (SGs) and on predictions inferred from the Land Dynamics (LaD) world-Gascoyne land water-energy balances model. Presently, the global hydrologic models are not precise enough to fulfill the geodetic requirements and are not efficient enough to separate the hydrology from tectonic motion in the land-based gravity time series. However, although the LaD model predictions and the gravity observations present significant differences in the time domain, it is shown that they have similar amplitudes in the frequency domain in most of the cases. The time series of the Global Geodynamics Project make it possible to investigate phenomena of a few years in the best case. Given the similarity between the power spectral densities (PSDs) of the LaD model predictions and the SG measurements when taken at the same epoch, it makes sense to use the LaD model to study the spectral behavior of the hydrological effects down to the decadal time scale, which is not yet possible with land-based measurements. It is shown that the PSDs of the hydrological effects flattens at low frequency and is characterized by a generalized Gauss-Markov structure. With such a noise level, the time necessary to measure a gravity rate of change of 1 nm/s(2)/a, at the 1 sigma level should not extend any longer than 17 years at the locations where the hydrological effects play a major role

Noise reduction through joint processing of gravity and gravity gradient data

In mineral and oil exploration, gravity gradient data can help to delineate small-scale features that cannot be retrieved from gravity measurements. Removing high-frequency noise while preserving the high-frequency real signal is one of the most challenging tasks associated with gravity gradiometry data processing. We present a method to reduce gravity and gravity gradient data noise when both are measured in the same area, based on a least-squares simultaneous inversion of observations and physical constraints, inferred from the gravity gradient tensor definition and its mathematical properties. Instead of handling profiles individually, our noise-reduction method uses simultaneously measured values of the tensor components and of gravity in the whole survey area, benefiting from all available information. Synthetic examples show that more than half of the random noise can be removed from all tensor components and nearly all the noise from the gravity anomaly without altering the high-frequency information. We apply our method to a set of marine gravity gradiometry data acquired by Bell Geospace in the Faroe-Shetland Basin to demonstrate its power to resolve small-scale features.

Comparative study of temporal variations in the earth’s gravity field using GRACE gravity models in the regions of three recent giant earthquakes

Comparative analysis of coseismic and postseismic variations of the Earth’s gravity field is carried for the regions of three giant earthquakes (Andaman-Sumatra, December 26, 2004, magnitude Mw = 9.1; Maule-Chile, February 27, 2010, Mw = 8.8, and Tohoku-Oki, March 11, 2011, Mw = 9.0) with the use of GRACE satellite data. Within the resolution of GRACE models, the coseismic changes of gravity caused by these seismic events manifest themselves by large negative anomalies located in the rear of the subduction zone. The real data are compared with the synthetic anomalies calculated from the rupture surface models based on different kinds of ground measurements. It is shown that the difference between the gravity anomalies corresponding to different rupture surface models exceeds the uncertainties of the GRACE data. There-fore, the coseismic gravity anomalies are at least suitable for rejecting part of the models that are equivalent in the ground data. Within the first few months after the Andaman-Sumatra earthquake, a positive gravity anomaly started to grow above the deep trench. This anomaly rapidly captured the area of the back-arc basin and largely compensated the negative coseismic anomaly. The processes of viscoelastic stress relaxation do not fully allow for these rapid changes of gravity. According to the calculations, even with a sufficiently low viscosity of the upper mantle, relaxation only covers about a half of the observed change of the field. In order to explain the remaining temporal variations, we suggested the process of downdip propagation of the coseismic rupture surface. The feasibility of such a process was supported by numerical simulations. The sum of the gravity anomalies caused by this process and the anomaly generated by the processes of viscoelastic relaxation accounts well for the observed changes of the gravity field in the region of the earthquake. The similar postseismic changes of gravity were also detected for the region of the Tohoku-Oki earthquake. Just as in the case discussed above, this earthquake was also followed by a rapid growth of a positive postseismic anomaly, which partially counterbalanced the negative coseismic anomaly. The time variations of the gravity field in the region of the Maule-Chile earthquake differ from the pattern of changes observed in the island arcs described above. The postseismic gravity variations are in this case concentrated in a narrower band above the deep trench and shelf, and they do not spread over the continental territory, where the negative coseismic anomaly is located. These discrepancies reflect the difference in the geodynamical settings of the studied earthquakes.

The two types of El-Niño and their impacts on the length of day

At the interannual to decadal timescale, the changes in the Earth rotation rate are linked with the El-Nin˜o Southern Oscillation phenomena through changes in the Atmospheric Angular Momentum. As climatic studies demonstrate that there were two types of El-Nin˜o events, namely Eastern Pacific (EP) and Central Pacific (CP) events, we investigate how each of them affect the Atmospheric Angular Momentum. We show in particular that EP events are associated with stronger variations of the Atmospheric Angular Momentum and length-of-day. We explain this difference by the stronger pressure gradient over the major mountain ranges, due to a stronger and more efficiently localized pressure dipole over the Pacific Ocean in the case of EP events.

Detection of the Earth rotation response to a rapid fluctuation of Southern Ocean circulation in November 2009

[1]xa0At seasonal and shorter periods the solid Earth and its overlying geophysical fluids form a closed dynamical system, which (except for tidal forcing) conserves its total angular momentum. While atmospheric effects dominate changes in the Earths rate of rotation and hence length-of-day (LOD) on these time scales, the addition of oceanic angular momentum (OAM) estimates has been shown to improve closure of the LOD budget in a statistical sense. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, the signature of a specific, sub-monthly ocean current fluctuation on the Earths rotation rate, coinciding with recently-reported anomalies which developed in southeast Pacific surface temperature and bottom pressure fields during late 2009. Our results show that concurrent variations in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which saw a sharp drop and recovery in zonal transport during a two-week period in November, were strong enough to cause a detectable change in LOD following the removal of atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) computed from the Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) database. The strong OAM variations driving the LOD-AAM changes were diagnosed from ocean state estimates of the Consortium for Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) and involved roughly equal contributions from the current and pressure terms, with in situ confirmation for the latter provided by tide-corrected bottom pressure recorder data from the South Drake Passage site of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current Levels by Altimetry and Island Measurements (ACCLAIM) network.