No abstract

A new POGO scalar magnetic anomaly map at 400 km altitude is presented which consists of spherical harmonics of degree 15–60. On the basis of the common features of this map with two new Magsat anomaly maps, dawn and dusk, two scalar magnetic anomaly maps of the Earth are presented using two selection criteria with different levels of stringency. These selection criteria suppress the noncrustal components of the original maps by different amounts. The more stringent selection criteria seek to eliminate as much contamination as possible, at the expense of suppressing some anomaly signal. This map is represented by spherical harmonics of degree 15–60. The less stringent selection criteria seek to retain as much crustal signal as possible, at the expense of also retaining some contaminating fields. This map is represented by spherical harmonics of degree 15–65. The resulting two maps are highly correlated with degree correlation coefficients greater than 0.8.

Empirical and analytical techniques for modeling ionospheric fields in Magsat data have been developed that facilitate ionospheric field removal from uncorrected anomalies to obtain better estimates of regional lithospheric anomalies. This task has been accomplished for equatorial ΔX, ΔZ, and ΔB component and polar ΔZ and ΔB component measurements. The techniques for modeling ionospheric fields have been integrated into a processing sequence that incorporates some of the important data‐processing techniques developed during the last decade. Data‐processing techniques include retention of common signal in a correlation analysis of adjacent passes; analysis of field differences between dawn and dusk data at points where their orbits cross; and retention of common signal in a covariant spherical harmonic analysis procedure. Results suggest that implementation of the above processing scheme leads to the mapping of the most robust magnetic anomalies of the lithosphere (vector components as well as scalar).

A primary objective of the Swarm constellation mission is to resolve the lithospheric magnetic field with the best achievable accuracy in order to bridge the spectral gap between satellite and airborne/marine magnetic surveys. In a series of end-to-end simulations, the possibilities of high degree field recovery were investigated. The proposed constellation consists of a higher and a lower pair of satellites. It was soon found that a constellation as such does not yet guarantee improved high degree field recovery. Of crucial importance is the orbit constellation of the lower pair of satellites. If the lower satellites follow each other, as investigated in Constellation 1, the gain of a constellation turns out to be marginal, compared to a single satellite. For Constellation 2, the lower satellites were separated in the E/W direction. In this setup, one can use the instantaneous E/W magnetic field gradient between the satellites, as well as the N/S along track gradients. Incorporating this vector gradient information results in significantly improved field resolution. Indeed, the final simulation suggests that the envisaged Swarm constellation will enable the recovery of the lithospheric field to beyond spherical harmonic degree 130.

No abstract