GRACE-FO: Global Monthly Land Water Storage Anomalies Release 6.3

Global terrestrial water storage anomaly grids derived from GRACE-FO satellite gravity observations. The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) produces these monthly data, representing total water storage changes in soil moisture, snow, surface water, and groundwater. This Release 6.3 version 04 data extends the mission legacy from May 2018 onward, incorporating updated geophysical corrections and filters.

Use Cases

• Monitoring regional groundwater depletion trends based on the derived terrestrial water storage anomalies.
• Analyzing seasonal and interannual variability in soil moisture and snowpack from the monthly time-series grids.
• Validating and improving global hydrological models using the spatially distributed equivalent water thickness data.
• Assessing drought and flood impacts by tracking anomalies in total surface and subsurface water storage.

Strengths

• Data incorporates glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) and standard geocenter, C20, and C30 corrections.
• Post-processing filters are applied to reduce correlated errors, as stated in the description.
• Fully compatible with the preceding GRACE RL06 mission data, ensuring a consistent long-term record.
• Provided in multiple standard formats (ASCII, netCDF, GeoTIFF) for interoperability.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Collection Method

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

Time Range

Monthly data from the GRACE-FO mission launch on 22 May 2018 onward.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:34:33.889036; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global land coverage.