We present new data on the lithospheric bulge in the vicinity of the Loyalty and New Hebrides Islands, and attempt to interpret the difference of the topographic profile of the outer wall of the New Hebrides trench from a theoretical profile. The free edge of the lithospheric plate appears to correspond to a line of maximum seismic strain release. The uplift rate and consequently the subduction...

The long-wavelength geoid and topography are dynamic effects of a convecting mantle. The long-wavelength geoid of the Earth is controlled by density variations in the mantle and has been explained by circulation models involving whole mantle flow. However, the relationship of long-wavelength topography to mantle circulation has been a puzzling problem in geodynamics. We show that the dynamic to...

Jupiter has half a dozen eastward jet streams in each hemisphere. On average, Earth has only one in each hemisphere. Jupiter has weather patterns ("storms'') that last for centuries. Earth has stationary weather patterns fixed to the topography, but the average lifetime of a traveling storm is rvl week. Jupiter has no topography, i.e. , no cont inents or oceans; its atmosphere merges smoothly w...

Jupiter has half a dozen eastward jet streams in each hemisphere. On average, Earth has only one in each hemisphere. Jupiter has weather patterns (“storms”) that last for centuries. Earth has stationary weather patterns fixed to the topography, but the average lifetime of a traveling storm is ∼1 week. Jupiter has no topography, i.e., no continents or oceans; its atmosphere merges smoothly with ...

Since the Magellan radar mapping of Venus in the early 1990’s, techniques of synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) have become the standard approach to mapping topography and topographic change on Earth. Here we investigate a hypothetical radar mission to Venus that exploits these new methods. We focus on a single spacecraft repeat-pass InSAR mission and investigate the radar and miss...

Regional slope values for earth and Venus are calculated for each 3 ø x 3 ø region of topography, and the global characteristics of these magnitudes are examined and compared. The effects on terrestrial regional slope due to ocean loading are treated by approximating the component of seafloor depth due to the weight of the overlying water column and removing this component from the ocean topogr...

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), scheduled for launch in December 2008, will make the first space-based measurements of atmospheric CO2 with the precision, spatial and temporal resolution needed to characterize CO2 sources and sinks on regional spatial scales and seasonal to interannual time scales. Variations in surface topography have a direct impact on the retrieval of the columnaverag...

A widening variety of applications is diversifying geomorphometry (digital terrain modelling), the quantitative study of topography. An amalgam of earth science, mathematics, engineering and computer science, the discipline has been revolutionized by the computer manipulation of gridded terrain heights, or digital elevation models (DEMs). Its rapid expansion continues. This article reviews the ...

For interferometric SAR (InSAR) processing, the precision of the interferometric phase is very important since it decides directly that of the final measurement. It is known that the interferometric phase is composed of many different parts such as the phase due to the topography, the possible deformation, the atmosphere, the track error and so on. Before doing phase-unwrapping, the interferogr...

the dedicated satellite mission goce will sense various small mass variations along its path around the earth. here we study the effect of the earth’s topography and atmosphere on goce data. the effects depend on the magnitude of topographic height, and they will therefore vary by region. as the effect of the atmosphere and topography must be removed from the total gravity anomaly prior to geoi...