Terrestrial water storage response to the 2012 drought estimated from GPS vertical position anomalies

Chew, Clara; Small, E. E.

doi:10.1002/2014gl061206

Cited by 72 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The Global Positioning System (GPS) accurately measures the crustal deformation at millimeter‐level accuracy, having benefitted greatly from recent improvements of GPS processing strategies. GPS coordinates have been employed to investigate global [ Blewitt et al , ; Wu et al , ; Gross et al , ; Tregoning et al , ] and local [ Heki , ; Grapenthin et al , ; Fu and Freymueller, ; Fu et al , ; Ouellette et al , ; Chanard et al , ; Borsa et al , ; Chew and Small , ; Amos et al , ] seasonal and long‐term loading deformation modes. Studies also use GPS horizontal displacements to constrain the location of surface load changes [ Wahr et al , ], and compare with GRACE [ Fu et al , ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

GPS as an independent measurement to estimate terrestrial water storage variations in Washington and Oregon

2015

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The Global Positioning System (GPS) measures elastic ground loading deformation in response to hydrological mass variations on or near Earth's surface. We present a time series of change in terrestrial water storage as a function of position in Washington and Oregon estimated using GPS measurements of vertical displacement of Earth's surface. The distribution of water variation inferred from GPS is highly correlated with physiographic provinces: the seasonal water is mostly located in the mountain areas, such as the Cascade Range and Olympic Mountains, and is much smaller in the basin and valley areas of the Columbia Basin and Harney Basin. GPS is proven to be an independent measurement to distinguish between hydrological models. The drought period of 2008-2010 (maximum in 2010) and the recovery period of 2011-2012 in the Cascade Range are well recovered with GPS-determined time-variable monthly water mass series. The GPS-inferred water storage variation in the Cascade Range is consistent with that derived from JPL's GRACE monthly mass grid solutions. The percentage of RMS reduction is~62% when we subtract GRACE water series from GPS-derived results. GPS-determined water storage variations can fill gaps in the current GRACE mission, also in the transition period from the current GRACE to the future GRACE Follow-on missions. We demonstrate that the GPS-inferred water storage variations can determine and verify local scaling factors for GRACE measurements; in the Cascade Range, the RMS reduction between GRACE series scaled by GPS and scaled by the hydrological model-based GRACE Tellus gain factors is up to 90.5%.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

GPS as an independent measurement to estimate terrestrial water storage variations in Washington and Oregon

2015

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“…Other documented events identified in Fig. 14b include the 2008-2009 drought in the La Plata basin (Abelen et al 2015), the 2010-2013 drought in Texas (Long et al 2013), the 2007-2009 drought in the south-eastern USA (Houborg et al 2012) and the 2012-2015 North American drought (Chew and Small 2014;Hoerling et al 2013). We also identify the 2006-2007 dry conditions over Lake Victoria (Swenson and Wahr 2009) and the African Great lakes ) and the 2006-2008 drought in the Zambezi basin , which are, in this analysis, captured together as a large-scale and spatially contiguous event.…”

Section: Droughtsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Assessing Global Water Storage Variability from GRACE: Trends, Seasonal Cycle, Subseasonal Anomalies and Extremes

Humphrey

Gudmundsson

Seneviratne

2016

Remote Sensing and Water Resources

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Throughout the past decade, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) has given an unprecedented view on global variations in terrestrial water storage. While an increasing number of case studies have provided a rich overview on regional analyses, a global assessment on the dominant features of GRACE variability is still lacking. To address this, we survey key features of temporal variability in the GRACE record by decomposing gridded time series of monthly equivalent water height into linear trends, inter-annual, seasonal, and subseasonal (intra-annual) components. We provide an overview of the relative importance and spatial distribution of these components globally. A correlation analysis with precipitation and temperature reveals that both the inter-annual and subseasonal anomalies are tightly related to fluctuations in the atmospheric forcing. As a novelty, we show that for large regions of the world high-frequency anomalies in the monthly GRACE signal, which have been partly interpreted as noise, can be statistically reconstructed from daily precipitation once an adequate averaging filter is applied. This filter integrates the temporally decaying contribution of precipitation to the storage changes in any given month, including earlier precipitation. Finally, we also survey extreme dry anomalies in the GRACE record and relate them to documented drought events. This global assessment sets regional studies in a broader context and reveals phenomena that had not been documented so far.

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“…GPS dz can be inverted for gridded ΔS with an effective spatial resolution determined by GPS station density. GPS dz have been used to estimate ΔS related to both seasonal (e.g., Bevis et al, 2005;Fu et al, 2012;Fu et al, 2015;Ouellette et al, 2013) and interannual processes (e.g., Argus et al, 2014;Argus et al, 2017;Borsa et al, 2014;Chew & Small, 2014). Argus et al (2017) used monthly data to identify multiyear trends in SN ΔS, which were attributed to variations in soil moisture and/or groundwater stored deep in sediments and fractured crystalline basement.…”

Section: 1029/2019gl084589mentioning

confidence: 99%

Subsurface Water Dominates Sierra Nevada Seasonal Hydrologic Storage

Enzminger

Small

Borsa

2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Vertical displacements (dz) in permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) station positions enable estimation of water storage changes (ΔS), which historically have been impossible to measure directly. We use dz from 924 GPS stations in the western United States to estimate daily ΔS in California's Sierra Nevada and compare it to seasonal snow accumulation and melt over water years 2008–2017. Seasonal variations in GPS‐based ΔS are ~1,000 mm. Typically, only ~30% of ΔS is attributable to snow water equivalent (SWE). ΔS lags the snow cycle, peaking after maximum SWE and remaining positive when all snow has melted (SWE = 0). We conclude that seasonal ΔS fluctuations are not primarily driven by SWE but by rainfall and snowmelt stored in the shallow subsurface (as soil moisture and/or groundwater) and released predominantly through evapotranspiration. Seasonal peak GPS ΔS is larger than accumulated precipitation from the Parameter‐elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model and North American Land Data Assimilation System, indicating that these standard inputs underestimate mountain precipitation.

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Terrestrial water storage response to the 2012 drought estimated from GPS vertical position anomalies

Cited by 72 publications

References 29 publications

GPS as an independent measurement to estimate terrestrial water storage variations in Washington and Oregon

GPS as an independent measurement to estimate terrestrial water storage variations in Washington and Oregon

Assessing Global Water Storage Variability from GRACE: Trends, Seasonal Cycle, Subseasonal Anomalies and Extremes

Subsurface Water Dominates Sierra Nevada Seasonal Hydrologic Storage

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