The Responses of the Deformable Earth to Different Driving Forces

The spatial and temporal variations of the Earth deformation and the gravitational field are important both in the theoretical research and in the construction of geospatial database. The Earth deforms due to various mechanisms and the deformation further induces changes in the gravitational potential of the Earth, i.e. the deformation-induced additional potential or the Euler gravitational increment. Based on the theory of vector spherical harmonics, we discuss in this paper the Earth deformation and gravitational increment resulting from the tidal force, loading force and the stress of the Earth's surface. We write out the expression for the Euler gravitational potential increment and the relations between different Love numbers. These are all important points in the research on Earth deformation.