High-precision 1′ × 1′ bathymetric model of Philippine Sea inversed from marine gravity anomalies

Abstract

The Philippine Sea, located at the edge of the northwestern Pacific Ocean, possesses complex seabed topography. Developing a high-precision bathymetric model for this region is of paramount importance, as it provides fundamental geoinformation essential for Earth observation and marine scientific research, including plate motion, ocean circulation, and hydrological characteristics. The gravity–geologic method (GGM), based on marine gravity anomalies, serves as an effective bathymetric prediction technique. To further strengthen the prediction accuracy of conventional GGM, we introduce the improved GGM (IGGM). The IGGM considers the effects of regional seafloor topography by employing weighted averaging to more accurately estimate the short-wavelength gravity component, along with refining the subsequent modeling of long-wavelength gravity component. In this paper, we focus on seafloor topography modeling in the Philippine Sea based on the IGGM, combining shipborne bathymetric data with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) V32.1 gravity anomaly. To reduce computational complexity, the optimal parameter values required for IGGM are first calculated before the overall regional calculation, and then, based on the terrain characteristics and distribution of sounding data, we selected four representative local sea areas as the research objects to construct the corresponding bathymetric models using GGM and IGGM. The analysis indicates that the precision of the IGGM models in four regions is improved to varying degrees, and the optimal calculation radius is 2′. Based on the above finding, a high-precision 1′×1′ bathymetric model of the Philippine Sea (5–35° N, 120–150° E), known as the BAT_PS model, is constructed using IGGM. Results demonstrate that the BAT_PS model exhibits a higher overall precision compared to the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), topo_25.1, and DTU18 models at single-beam shipborne bathymetric points.