Characteristics of gravity signal and loading effect in China

The complex geographical environment in China makes its gravity signals miscellaneous. This work gives a comprehensive representation and explanation in secular trend of gravity change in different regions, the key features of which include positive trend in inner Tibet Plateau and South China and negative trend in North China plain and high mountain Asia (HMA). We also present the patterns of amplitudes and phases of annual and semiannual change. The mechanism underlying the semiannual period is explicitly discussed. The displacement in three directions expressed in terms of geo-potential spherical coefficients and load Love numbers are given. A case study applied with these equations is presented. The results show that Global Positioning System (GPS) observations can be used to compare with Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) derived displacement and the vertical direction has a signal-noise-ratio of about one order of magnitude larger than the horizontal directions. (C) 2015, Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).