On the realization of a 10cm relative oceanic geoid

The theoretical and numerical problems associated with the computation of a 10 cm relative oceanic geoid was investigated. Based on a model which requires potential coefficients and gravity anomaly information for the computation of geoidal undulations, an error analysis was developed through which the necessary data requirements for the realization of such a high accuracy geoid were derived. To ensure the validity of the Stokes integral to the required level of accuracy, seasonal and latitude dependent atmospheric corrections to the gravity and height anomalies were developed. From these corrections it was deduced that when the combined latitudinal/seasonal dependence is neglected, the maximum error introduced is of the order of 40 mu gals for the gravity corrections and 0.7 cm for the height anomaly corrections.