Absolute gravity observations in Norway (1993–2014) for glacial isostatic adjustment studies: The influence of gravitational loading effects on secular gravity trends

AbstractWe have compiled and analyzed FG5 absolute gravity observations between 1993 and 2014 at 21 gravity sites in Norway, and explore to what extent these observations are applicable for glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) studies. Where available, raw gravity observations are consistently reprocessed. Furthermore, refined gravitational corrections due to ocean tide loading and non-tidal ocean loading, as well as atmospheric and global hydrological mass variations are computed. Secular gravity trends are computed using both standard and refined corrections and subsequently compared with modeled gravity rates based on a GIA model. We find that the refined gravitational corrections mainly improve rates where GIA, according to model results, is not the dominating signal. Consequently, these rates may still be considered unreliable for constraining GIA models, which we trace to continued lack of a correction for the effect of local hydrology, shortcomings in our refined modeling of gravitational effects, and scarcity of observations. Finally, a subset of standard and refined gravity rates mainly reflecting GIA is used to estimate ratios between gravity and height rates of change by ordinary and weighted linear regression. Relations based on both standard and refined gravity rates are within the uncertainty of a recent modeled result