G
Geodesy

Earth observation

Bits and Bites of Geodesy – Satellite Gravimetry: Studying Earth’s water cycle from space

February 27, 2026
Bits and Bites of Geodesy – Satellite Gravimetry: Studying Earth’s water cycle from space

During winter, mountains gain mass because of snow covering the peaks. In spring, the snow melts and flows downstream until it reaches the ocean or evaporates into the atmosphere to reach back on the surface as rain or snow. The global water cycle is very complex and essential for life on our planet. Did you know we can measure how the water is distributed by measuring its mass from space? How can ...[Read More]

Bits and Bites of Geodesy – Trilateration on Vacation: How GNSS Locates You

July 25, 2025
Bits and Bites of Geodesy – Trilateration on Vacation: How GNSS Locates You

Summer vacations are finally here! Like every year, many of us are ready to travel and explore new and exciting destinations. And of course, the GPS on our phones will be an indispensable travel companion! Did you know that GPS (or GNSS) positioning is one of the traditional geodetic techniques? Come along to discover how this technique can find your location in the world and the various applicati ...[Read More]

Bits and Bites of Geodesy – From Wobble to Wander: Tracking Earth’s Shifting Rotation Axis

June 27, 2025
Bits and Bites of Geodesy – From Wobble to Wander: Tracking Earth’s Shifting Rotation Axis

When we think of Earth’s rotation, it is tempting to imagine a perfectly smooth spin. But in reality, Earth’s rotation is irregular and dynamic, and is influenced by forces inside and outside of our planet. To describe the changing orientation of the Earth in space over time Earth Orientation Parameters (EOPs) are measured with fundamental geodetic measuring techniques, e.g., Very Long Baseline In ...[Read More]

Bits and Bites of Geodesy – Satellite altimetry: What else can we do with it?

, and May 31, 2024
Bits and Bites of Geodesy – Satellite altimetry: What else can we do with it?

In the previous post of this series, we learned how we can use satellite radar altimetry to retrieve highly accurate estimates of global sea level changes. If only reading “sea level” triggers your climate anxiety – we got you covered! In this post we will introduce you to three more applications of radar altimetry, where the first two are not directly connected to climate change. Instead, w ...[Read More]

High resolution terrestrial water storage changes from combination of GRACE and models

, and February 7, 2024
High resolution terrestrial water storage changes from combination of GRACE and models

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission (2002-2017) consisted of two satellites at ~500 km altitude separated by 200 km, following each other in the same orbit. The distance between the two GRACE satellites changes because of the gravitational pull of the masses beneath the satellites. As such, mass changes at or near the Earth’s surface caused variations in the dista ...[Read More]

Calculating postglacial sea-level change within few seconds: a statistical emulator for GIA

, and December 22, 2023
Calculating postglacial sea-level change within few seconds: a statistical emulator for GIA

Sea-level change serves as a direct indicator of climate change with profound implications for coastal areas. Since 1900, the global mean sea level (GMSL) has risen over 20 cm, leading to beach erosion, delta inundation, and increased flooding worldwide. Over glacial cycles spanning tens of thousands of years, interactions between ocean and continental-scale ice sheets can cause GMSL to fluctuate ...[Read More]

Reshaping Earth: GIA and its far-reaching effects

, , and December 19, 2023
Reshaping Earth: GIA and its far-reaching effects

As the Geodesy blog team (we are growing, horaay!), we wanted to create a space for researchers to talk about their work/papers in a more simplified language. For the first post in this series, we said “Wouldn’t it be cool if we learn more about Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) models?” then we realised that we first need to uncover what GIA is. So, we passed the pen to Holger, Rebekka and Yuche ...[Read More]

Geodesists on Tour: On a Campaign in the Arctic with a Giraf(f)e in the Aircraft

and November 6, 2023
Geodesists on Tour: On a Campaign in the Arctic with a Giraf(f)e in the Aircraft

  Way too early on a Saturday morning in late June 2023 I woke up and started my travel to a small airport in Akureyri, North-East Iceland. This is the location of an Icelandic charter company called Norlandair that we used for our airborne geophysical surveys and logistic operations in the Arctic. For a few months I had been preparing a survey to test a new quantum-based technology for airbo ...[Read More]

Women in Geodesy: Kristel Chanard

, and May 29, 2023
Women in Geodesy: Kristel Chanard

I hope you are ready to be inspired because we have another exciting interview, with Kristel Chanard, our Outstanding Early Career Scientist Awardee of 2022. I promise that her answers will encourage you to pursue a career in science or continue to that!  Her answers remind us again that we need to make geosciences more inclusive and diverse. So, let’s leave the spotlight to Kristel and hear what ...[Read More]

Women in Geodesy: Sara Bruni

, and May 22, 2023
Women in Geodesy: Sara Bruni

Are you ready to hear from another woman in geodesy? We pass the mic to our Outstanding Early Career Scientist Awardee of 2018, someone who is currently carrying out her scientific works outside of academia. We are not going to take that much of your time and leave the stage to her. Would you like to share your thoughts about what being a woman in science means to you? I enjoy being a scientist be ...[Read More]