Traditionally, sea level is observed at tide gauge stations, which usually also serve as height reference stations for national leveling networks and therefore define a height system of a country. One of the main deficiencies to use tide gauge data for geodetic sea level research and height systems unification is that only a few stations are connected to the geometric network of a country by operating permanent GNSS receivers next to the tide gauge. As a new observation technique, absolute positioning by SAR using active transponders on ground can fill this gap by systematically observing time series of geometric heights at tide gauge stations. By additionally knowing the tide gauge geoid heights in a global height reference frame, one can finally obtain absolute sea level heights at each tide gauge. With this information the impact of climate change on the sea level can be quantified in an absolute manner and height systems can be connected across the oceans. First results from applying this technique at selected tide gauges at the Baltic coasts are promising but also exhibit some problems related to the new technique. The paper presents the concept of using the new observation type in an integrated sea level observing system and provides some early results for SAR positioning in the Baltic sea area.
Even though the entire Baltic Sea is included in previous geoid modelling projects such as the NKG2015 and EGG07, the accuracy of contemporary geoid models over marine areas remains unknown, presumably being offshore around 15–20 cm. An important part of the international cooperation project FAMOS (Finalising Surveys for the Baltic Motorways of the Sea) efforts is conducting new marine gravity observations for improving gravimetric quasigeoid modelling. New data is essential to the project as the existing gravimetric data over some regions of the Baltic Sea may be inaccurate and insufficiently scarce for the purpose of 5 cm accuracy geoid modelling. Therefore, it is important to evaluate geoid modelling outcome by independent data, for instance by shipborne GNSS measurements. Accordingly, this study presents results of the ship-borne marine gravity and GNSS campaign held on board the Estonian Maritime Administration survey vessel “Jakob Prei” in West-Estonian archipelago in June/July 2016. Emphasis of the study is on principles of using the GNSS profiles for validation of existing geoid models, post-processing of GNSS raw data and low-pass filtering of the GNSS results. Improvements in geoid modelling using new gravimetric data are also discussed. For example, accuracy of geoid models including the new marine gravity data increased 11 mm as assessed from GNSS profiles. It is concluded that the marine GNSS profiles have a potential in providing complementary constraints in problematic geoid modelling areas.
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