Mare Nostrum: geomed report - 2

Abstract

GEOMED is a project for the determination of the geoid and of the Sea Surface Topography in the Mediterranean Sea. The existing set of data available on the Mediterranean in already quite significant and it is going to be improved in these years because of the new altimetric data coming from ERS1 and the TOPEX-POSEIDON missions. In the execution of the project we use, mainly, radar altimetric data (f rom SEASAT, GEOSAT and ESR1 missions) gravimetrie data, bathymetric models, as well as land gravi ty data set and DTMs of surrounding regions: these data sets are generally poor on the southern side of the Mediterranean. More geophysical data, like tidal and Moho depth models, will be user too. The partieularity of this projeet is in that the dynamics of the Mediterranean, as a elosed sea, eannot be easily modelled, so that the time dependent part of the altimetric signal has to be modelled empirically together wi th the radial orbi terror; on the other hand, sinee the satellite ares are very short, this choice is well justified. The separation between the stationary Sea Surface Topography and the geoid can be done in such an area using both data sets, the altimetric and the gravimetric one, whieh is available eontrary to the situation in open oceanic areas. This volume, the second of the MARE NOSTRUM Series, eolleet the works done by many groups involved in the GEOMED organization, in the last year, as informed in the GEOMED Meeting held in Madrid at october 1992, and will be followed by others with new contributions.