SDUST2020MGCR: a global marine gravity change rate model determined from multi-satellite altimeter data

Abstract

Abstract. Investigating global time-varying gravity field mainly depends on GRACE/GRACE-FO gravity data. However, satellite gravity data exhibits low spatial resolution and signal distortion. The satellite altimetry is an important technique for observing global ocean, providing continuous multi-year data that enables the study of high-resolution time-varying marine gravity. This study aims to construct a high- resolution marine gravity change rate (MGCR) model using multi-satellite altimetry data. Initially, multi-satellite altimetry data and ocean temperature-salinity data from 1993 to 2019 are utilized to estimate the altimetry sea level change rate (SLCR) and steric SLCR, respectively. Subsequently, the mass-term SLCR is calculated. Finally, based on mass-term SLCR, we construct the global MGCR model on 5′×5′ grids (SDUST2020MGCR) applying the spherical harmonic function method and mass load theory. Comparisons and analyses are conducted between SDUST2020MGCR and GRACE2020MGCR resolved from GRACE/GRACE-FO gravity data. The spatial distribution characteristics of SDUST2020MGCR and GRACE2020MGCR are similar in the sea areas where gravity changes significantly, such as the seas near some ocean currents, the western seas of Nicobar Islands, and the southern seas of Greenland. The statistical mean values of SDUST2020MGCR and GRACE2020MGCR in global and local oceans are all positive, indicating that MGCR is rising. Nonetheless, differences in spatial distribution and statistical results exist spatial resolution disparities among altimetry data, ocean temperature-salinity data, between SDUST2020MGCR and GRACE2020MGCR, primarily attributable to and GRACE/GRACE-FO data. Compared with GRACE2020MGCR, SDUST2020MGCR has higher spatial resolution and excludes stripe noise and leakage errors. The high-resolution MGCR model constructed using altimetry data can reflect the long-term marine gravity change in more detail, which is helpful to study Earth mass migration. The SDUST2020MGCR model data is available at https://zenodo.org/records/10098524 (Zhu et al., 2023b).