Global Water Storage Anomalies from GRACE Satellites with Coastal Filter

Gridded monthly global water storage and height anomalies derived from NASA's GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite gravity missions. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory processed the data using a Mascon approach with 4,551 independent surface mass change estimates and applied a Coastal Resolution Improvement filter to reduce signal leakage. This release (RL06.3Mv04) is an updated version of previous JPL Mascon solutions.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in equivalent water height anomalies over specific river basins for hydrological drought assessment.
• Study mass change signals in ice sheets and glaciers at sub-mascon resolution using the provided gain factors.
• Separate land and ocean mass change signals in coastal regions using the Coastal Resolution Improvement filter and provided land mask.
• Validate global hydrological and climate models by comparing simulated water storage against the monthly gridded anomalies.
• Investigate ocean mass variations and their contribution to sea level rise using the filtered ocean mass signals.

Strengths

• 4,551 independent estimates of surface mass change derived from an equal-area 3-degree grid.
• Data incorporates realistic geophysical constraints to intrinsically remove correlated errors, eliminating the need for post-hoc de-correlation.
• Coastal Resolution Improvement filter specifically reduces signal leakage errors across coastlines, improving accuracy for coastal studies.

Limitations

• The dataset provides anomalies relative to a time-mean, not absolute water storage values.
• Spatial resolution is constrained by the 3-degree mascon grid, though gain factors allow for sub-mascon analysis.
• Uncertainty values are provided separately, requiring integration for rigorous error analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), derived from GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite missions.

Collection Method

Gravity field variations solved for monthly on geolocated spherical cap mass concentration (Mascon) functions.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Global