PHCSOFT: A Software package for computing physical height changes from GRACE based global geopotential models

Abstract

Physical height changes play an important role in the modernization of national/international levelling networks in the discipline of geodesy. This paper represents a software package, named PHCSOFT (Physical Height Changes SOFTware) which allows to compute and plot physical height changes from Global Geopotential Models (GGMs) based on a monthly interval GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite mission data. The software has the ability to plot time series of computed temporal variations of geoid heights as well as temporal variations of surface deformations in up component, rapidly. In this contribution, the performance of software was tested at a point in Greenland. Accordingly, PHCSOFT is an alternative software package with its algorithm that speeds up the computation of physical height changes using GGMs from three GRACE computation centers.