Dimension of the Earth's General Ellipsoid

The problem of specifying the Earth's mean (general)ellipsoid is discussed. This problem has been greatly simplified in the era of satellite altimetry, especially thanks to the adopted geoidal geopotential value, W0 = (62 636 856.0 ± 0.5) m2 s-2.Consequently, the semimajor axis a of the Earth&#...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Earth, moon, and planets moon, and planets, 2002-09, Vol.91 (1), p.31-41
Main Authors: Burša, Milan, Kenyon, Steve, Kouba, Jan, Raděj, Karel, Šíma, Zdislav, Vatrt, Viliam, Vojtíšková, Marie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altimetry
Astronomy
Earth
Earth axis
Ellipsoids
Geopotential
Satellite altimetry
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The problem of specifying the Earth's mean (general)ellipsoid is discussed. This problem has been greatly simplified in the era of satellite altimetry, especially thanks to the adopted geoidal geopotential value, W0 = (62 636 856.0 ± 0.5) m2 s-2.Consequently, the semimajor axis a of the Earth's mean ellipsoid can be easily derived. However, an a priori condition must be posed first. Two such a priori conditions have been examined, namely an ellipsoid with the corresponding geopotential that fits best W0 in the least squares sense and an ellipsoid that has the global geopotential average equal to W0. It has been demonstrated that both a priori conditions yield ellipsoids of the same dimension, with a–values that are practically identical to the value corresponding to the Pizzetti theory of the level ellipsoid: a = (6 378 136.68 ± 0.06) m.
ISSN:0167-9295
1573-0794
DOI:10.1023/A:1021267922145