Fernando Sansò

Michael G. Sideris

This book will be based on the material of the lecture noties in several International Schools for the Determination and Use of the Geoid, organized by the International Geoid Serivice of the International Association of Geodesy. It consolidates, unifies, and streamlines this material in a unique way not covereed by the few other books that exist on this subjext. More specifically, the book presents (for the first time in a single volume) the theory and methodology of the most common technique used for precise determination of the geoid, including the computation of the marine geoid from satellite altimetry data. These are illustrated by specific examples and actual computations of local geoids. In addition, the book provides the fundamentals of estimating orthometric heights without spirit levelling, by properly combining a geoid with heights from GPS. Besides the geodectic and geophysical uses, this last application has made geoid computation methods very popular in recent years because the entire GPS and GIS user communities are interested in estimating geoid undulations in order to convert GPS heights to physically meaningful orthometric heights (elevations above mean sea level). The overall purpose of the book is, therefore, to provide the user community (academics, graduate students, geophysicists, engineers, oceanographers, GIS and GPS users, researchers) with a self-contained textbook, which will supply them with the complete roadmap of estimating geoid undulations, from the theoretical definitions and formulas to the available numerical methods and their implementation and the test in practice.

Theory and Methods

Geoid Determination

This volume contains a selection of 99 papers from the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) quadrennial General Assembly, held in Perugia, Italy, from July 2 to 13, 2007, in conjunction with the XXIV General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). There were 225 oral and 474 poster presentations made at the five IAG Symposia, which covered the following research themes: Reference Frames, Gravity Field, Earth Rotation and Geodynamics, Positioning and Applications, The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS). The Symposia focused on Earth observation and the there pillars of geodesy (geometry, Earth rotation, gravity field), and the presented topics spanned a broad and multidisciplinary spectrum of theory and applications. It was clearly evident that, with the recent advances in space missions such as GRACE, geodesy can now contribute to the detection of large-scale temporal phenomena and hence to the solution of important problems of society related to monitoring our environment and understanding global change. Therefore, the title of this volume, "Observing our Changing Earth," was chosen to reflect this fact, as well as to agree with the general theme of the 2007 IUGG General Assembly, "Earth: Our Changing Planet."

Michael G. Sideris

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