Impact of uncertainties of GOCE gravity model on crustal thickness estimates

SUMMARY In the last few years many studies have applied data of satellite gravity sensors for solid Earth applications. The use of different methodologies has been shown to result in large variations in crustal thickness even when using the same data as source. It is, however, difficult to estimate what is a significant difference between such models. Up to now the impact of the inherent uncertainty of Gravity Field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) data on solid Earth applications has never been quantified. With this study we will provide uncertainty boundaries for crustal modelling based on the GOCE TIM5 covariance matrix. Different noise realizations have been calculated using a Monte Carlo-like simulation and added to the TIM5 model coefficients. The resulting differences in crustal thickness amount to maximum ±0.2 km, which is less than 1 per cent of the total thickness, and much smaller than many other uncertainties involved in the inversion process.