Atpresent,thereexisttwomethodsusedtorecoverthebathymetryfromaltimeterdata,i.e.thedeterministicmethodandthestochasticmethod.Inthispaper,theprinciplesofthetwomethodsareintroducedfirst.Thenaccordingtothetheoryofleast-squarecollocation,amodifiedstatisticalmodelforrecoveringbathymetryfromaltimeterdataisproposed.ThenewmodelhasbeenusedforcomputingtheoceandepthintheSouthChinaSeafromaltimeter-derivedgravityanomalies.Finallythepredicteddepthsarecomparedwiththeship-bornedepth.Itshowsthattheyagreewitheachotherverywell.
