Decorrelated GRACE time-variable gravity solutions by GFZ, and their validation using a hydrological model

We have analyzed recent gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) RL04 monthly gravity solutions, using a new decorrelating post-processing approach. We find very good agreement with mass anomalies derived from a global hydrological model. The post-processed GRACE solutions exhibit only little...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of geodesy 2009-10, Vol.83 (10), p.903-913
Main Authors: Kusche, J., Schmidt, R., Petrovic, S., Rietbroek, R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Geodetics
Geophysics/Geodesy
Global positioning systems
GPS
Gravity
Hydrologic models
Hydrology
Original Article
Studies
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Summary:We have analyzed recent gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) RL04 monthly gravity solutions, using a new decorrelating post-processing approach. We find very good agreement with mass anomalies derived from a global hydrological model. The post-processed GRACE solutions exhibit only little amplitude damping and an almost negligible phase shift and period distortion for relevant hydrological basins. Furthermore, these post-processed GRACE solutions have been inspected in terms of data fit with respect to the original inter-satellite ranging and to SLR and GPS observations. This kind of comparison is new. We find variations of the data fit due to solution post-processing only within very narrow limits. This confirms our suspicion that GRACE data do not firmly ‘pinpoint’ the standard unconstrained solutions. Regarding the original Kusche (J Geod 81:733–749, 2007) decorrelation and smoothing method, a simplified (order-convolution) approach has been developed. This simplified approach allows to realize a higher resolution—as necessary, e.g., for generating computed GRACE observations—and needs far less coefficients to be stored.
ISSN:0949-7714
1432-1394
DOI:10.1007/s00190-009-0308-3