The Effect of Polar Gaps on the Solutions of Gradiometric Boundary Value Problems

The lack of satellite gravity gradiometric data, due to inclined orbit, in the Polar Regions influences the geopotential coefficients obtained from the solutions of gradiometric boundary value problems. This paper investigates the polar gaps effect on these solutions and it presents that the near zero-, first- and second-order geopotential coefficients are weakly determined by the vertical-vertical, vertical-horizontal and horizontal solutions, respectively. Also it shows that the vertical-horizontal solution is more sensitive to the lack of data than the other solutions.