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@ARTICLE{2026SGeo..tmp...33R,
       author = {{Rudenko}, Sergei and {Dettmering}, Denise and {Lemoine}, Jean-Michel and {Blo{\ss}feld}, Mathis and {Zeitlh{\"o}fler}, Julian},
        title = "{Impact of Earth's Mean Time-Variable Gravity Field Models on Precise Orbits of Altimetry Satellites}",
      journal = {Surveys in Geophysics},
     keywords = {Altimetry satellites, Earth's gravity field, Time-variable gravity, Precise orbit determination, Satellite Laser Ranging, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason},
         year = 2026,
        month = mar,
     abstract = "{Gravitational forces are the major forces acting on near-Earth orbiting
        (e.g., altimetry) satellites. We perform a review of Earth's
        mean time-variable gravity (TVG) field models developed in the
        past 23 years (2000-2023). This includes the models developed
        using CHAMP, GRACE, GRACE-FO, GOCE, SLR (Satellite Laser
        Ranging), and DORIS measurements. Some of these models contain
        just secular terms, while more recent models include also
        periodic (annual and semi-annual) variations of the Earth's
        gravity. We show the impact of these models on precise orbit
        determination (POD) of selected altimetry satellites, namely
        TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, and Jason-3 at the time
        interval from 1992 to 2023. The impact of these models is
        assessed for different orbit parameters as well as the root-
        mean-square (RMS) and mean values of SLR observation residuals
        and orbit differences. Furthermore, the impact of these models
        on altimetry (single- and multi-satellite) sea surface height
        crossover differences, radial errors, geographically correlated
        mean errors, and their trends is analyzed. We have found that
        the CNES RL05MF model derived using data of 1985-2022 performs
        best among the models tested in this study, particularly for the
        Jason-3 time span (2016-2023). Using this model reduces the RMS
        values of SLR observation residuals from 2.56 cm (for pre-CHAMP
        model GRIM5-C1) to 1.48 cm for this satellite. The RMS values of
        orbit differences in the radial direction fit within 0.7-0.8 cm
        for most recent TVG models, while using old GRIM5-C1 would
        result in 1.9 cm differences. It is important to reprocess
        regularly Earth's TVG data covering the longest time span to
        minimize extrapolation errors of the models.}",
          doi = {10.1007/s10712-026-09942-x},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026SGeo..tmp...33R},
      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}