Temporal gravity field models inferred from GRACE data

The time variable Earth's gravity field contains information about the mass transport within the system Earth, i.e., the relationship between mass variations in the atmosphere, oceans, land hydrology, and ice sheets. For many years, satellite laser ranging (SLR) observations to geodetic satellites have provided valuable information of the lowdegree coefficients of the Earth's gravity field. Today, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission is the major source of information for the time variable field of a high spatial resolution. We recover the low-degree coefficients of the time variable Earth's gravity field using SLR observations up to nine geodetic satellites: LAGEOS-1, LAGEOS-2, Starlette, Stella, AJISAI, LARES, Larets, BLITS, and Beacon-C. We estimate monthly gravity field coefficients up to degree and order 10/10 for the time span 2003-2013 and we compare the results with the GRACEderived gravity field coefficients. We show that not only degree-2 gravity field coefficients can be well determined from SLR, but also other coefficients up to degree 10 using the combination of short 1-day arcs for low orbiting satellites and 10-day arcs for LAGEOS-1/2. In this way, LAGEOS-1/2 allow recovering zonal terms, which are associated with long-term satellite orbit perturbations, whereas the tesseral and sectorial terms benefit most from low orbiting satellites, whose orbit modeling deficiencies are minimized due to short 1-day arcs. The amplitudes of the annual signal in the lowdegree gravity field coefficients derived from SLR agree with GRACE K-band results at a level of 77 %. This implies that SLR has a great potential to fill the gap between the current GRACE and the future GRACE Follow-On mission for recovering of the seasonal variations and secular trends of the longest wavelengths in gravity field, which are associated with the large-scale mass transport in the system Earth.

Section: The Grace-slr Combined Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time variable Earth’s gravity field from SLR satellites

Sośnica

Jäggi

Meyer

et al. 2015

“…The first and the only satellite gravimetry mission which allows mass variations to be observed down to the spatial scale of about 300 km is the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) launched in 2002 (Tapley et al 2004). On the basis of GRACE K-Band Ranging (KBR) data, a number of alternative time-series of temporal mass variations are being produced at several research institutes (Bettadpur 2007;Schmidt 2007;Ilk et al 2005;Luthcke et al 2006b; Lemoine et al 2007;Liu et al 2010). The typical temporal resolution of those time series is 1 month.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of mass change trends in the Earth’s system on the basis of GRACE satellite data, with application to Greenland

Siemes

Ditmar

Riva

et al. 2012

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission measures the Earth's gravity field since March 2002. We propose a new filtering procedure for post-processing GRACE-based monthly gravity field solutions provided in the form of spherical harmonic coefficients. The procedure is tuned for the optimal estimation of linear trends and other signal components that show a systematic behavior over long time intervals. The key element of the developed methodology is the statistically optimal Wienertype filter which makes use of the full covariance matrices of noise and signal. The developed methodology is applied to determine the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet, both per drainage system and integrated, as well as the mass balance of the ice caps on the islands surrounding Greenland. The estimations are performed for three 2-year time intervals (2003-2004, 2005-2006, and 2007-2008), as well as for the 6-year time interval (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008). The study confirms a significant difference in the behavior of the drainage systems over time. The average 6-year rate of mass loss in Greenland is estimated as 165 ± 15 Gt/year. The rate of mass loss of the ice caps on Ellesmere Island (together with Devon Island), Baffin Island, Iceland, and Svalbard is found to be 22 ± 4, 21 ± 6, 17 ± 9, and 6 ± 2 Gt/year, respectively. All these estimates are corrected for the effect of glacial isostatic adjustment.

“…Furthermore, models of temporal gravity field variations are routinely produced from GRACE data (typically, with the temporal resolution of one month) (Bettadpur 2007;Flechtner et al 2010;Ilk et al 2005;Luthcke et al 2006;Lemoine et al 2007;Liu et al 2010). Such models are used, in particular, for monitoring the redistribution of water in the Earth's system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding data noise in gravity field recovery on the basis of inter-satellite ranging measurements acquired by the satellite gravimetry mission GRACE

Ditmar

Encarnação

Farahani

2011

Spectral analysis of data noise is performed in the context of gravity field recovery from inter-satellite ranging measurements acquired by the satellite gravimetry mission GRACE. The motivation of the study is two-fold: (i) to promote a further improvement of GRACE data processing techniques and (ii) to assist designing GRACE follow-on missions. The analyzed noise realizations are produced as the difference between the actual GRACE inter-satellite range measurements and the predictions based on state-of-the-art force models. The exploited functional model is based on the so-called "range combinations," which can be understood as a finite-difference analog of inter-satellite accelerations projected onto the line-of-sight connecting the satellites. It is shown that low-frequency noise is caused by limited accuracy of the computed GRACE orbits. In the first instance, it leads to an inaccurate estimation of the radial component of the inter-satellite velocities. A large impact of this component stems from the fact that it is directly related to centrifugal accelerations, which have to be taken into account when the measured range-accelerations are linked with inter-satellite accelerations. Another effect of orbit inaccuracies is a miscalculation of forces acting on the satellites (particularly, the one described by the zero-degree term of the Earth's gravitational field). The major contributors to the noise budget at high frequencies (above 9 mHz) are (i) ranging sensor errors and (ii) limited knowledge of the Earth's static gravity field at high degrees. Importantly, we show that updating the model of the static field on the basis of the available data must be performed with a caution as the result may not be physical due to a non-unique recovery of high-degree coefficients. The source of noise in the range of intermediate frequencies (1-9 mHz), which is particularly critical for an accurate gravity field recovery, is not fully understood yet. We show, however, that it cannot be explained by inaccuracies in background models of time-varying gravity field. It is stressed that most of the obtained results can be treated as sufficiently general (i.e., applicable in the context of a statistically optimal estimation based on any functional model).