GRACE-FO: Monthly Land Water Storage Anomalies Release 6.3

GRACE-FO satellite data launched in May 2018 tracks monthly terrestrial water storage anomalies as equivalent water thickness. Version 04 incorporates updated geocenter and C20 corrections, an ellipsoidal correction, and glacial isostatic adjustment. These grids represent total water storage changes from soil moisture, snow, surface water, and groundwater.

Use Cases

• Monitor groundwater depletion trends based on total terrestrial water storage anomalies.
• Assess regional drought severity based on soil moisture and surface water storage changes.
• Validate hydrological models based on monthly, gridded equivalent water thickness data.
• Track seasonal snowpack and reservoir storage variations based on surface mass anomaly measurements.

Strengths

• Data incorporates updated geocenter (TN-13) and C20 (TN-14) corrections for accuracy.
• An ellipsoidal correction accounts for Earth's non-spherical shape when mapping gravity anomalies.
• A glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) correction has been applied to the data.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Center for Space Research (CSR) GRACE-FO program, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Collection Method

Derived from GRACE-FO time-variable gravity satellite observations.

Time Range

Likely spans from the GRACE-FO mission start in May 2018 onward.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:28:18.530056; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global terrestrial coverage.