A global semi-empirical glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model based on Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data

The effect of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) on the shape and gravity of the Earth is usually described by numerical models that solve for both glacial evolution and Earth's rheology, being mainly constrained by the geological evidence of local ice extent and globally distributed sea level data, as well as by geodetic observations of...

Using GRACE to Explain Variations in the Earth's Oblateness

We present a new approach to estimate time variations in J2. Those variations are represented as the sum of contributions from individual sources. This approach uses solely Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) data and the geoid fingerprints of mass redistributions that take place both at the surface and in the interior of the solid...

Geocentre motion and Earth's dynamic oblateness time-series derived from GRACE CSR RL06 solutions and geophysical models

With the launch of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission in 2002 (http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace), Satellite Gravimetry has become a unique tool to estimate hydrological water balance and mass balance of ice sheets, as well as to monitor mass re-distribution in the oceans and the solid Earth. However, satellite...

Assessment of GRACE monthly solutions by quantifying the noise level in mass anomaly time-series with the variance component estimation (PPT)

A benchmark study of numerical implementations of the sea level equation in GIA modelling

The ocean load in glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) modelling is represented by the so-called sea level equation (SLE). The SLE describes the mass redistribution of water between ice sheets and oceans on a deforming Earth. Despite various teams independently investigating GIA, there has been no systematic intercomparison among the numerical...

Statistically optimal estimation of degree-1 and C₂₀ coefficients based on GRACE data and an ocean bottom pressure model

In this study, we develop a methodology to estimate monthly variations in degree-1 andC₂₀ coefficients by combing Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data withoceanic mass anomalies (combination approach).With respect to the method by Swenson et al.,the proposed approach exploits noise covariance information of both...

Uncertainty in geocenter estimates in the context of ITRF2014

Uncertainty in the geocenter position and its subsequent motion affects positioning estimates on the surface of the Earth and downstream products such as site velocities, particularly the vertical component. The current version of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, ITRF2014, derives its origin as the long-term averaged center of...

A high resolution model of linear trend in mass variations from DMT-2: Added value of accounting for coloured noise in GRACE data

We present a high resolution model of the linear trend in the Earth’s mass variations based on DMT-2 (Delft Mass Transport model, release 2). DMT-2 was produced primarily from K-Band Ranging (KBR) data of the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE). It comprises a time series of monthly solutions complete to spherical harmonic degree 120...

Optimizing estimates of annual variations and trends in geocentermotion and J2 from a combination of GRACE data and geophysical models

The focus of the study is optimizing the technique for estimating geocenter motion and variations in J2 by combining data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission with output from an Ocean Bottom Pressure model and a Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) model. First, we conduct an end-to-end numerical simulation...

Sub-basin-scale sea level budgets from satellite altimetry, Argo floats and satellite gravimetry: a case study in the North Atlantic Ocean

. In this study, for the first time, an attempt is made to close the sea level budget on a sub-basin scale in terms of trend and amplitude of the annual cycle. We also compare the residual time series after removing the trend, the semiannual and the annual signals. To obtain errors for altimetry and Argo, full variance–covariance matrices are...

Observed changes in the Earth’s dynamic oblateness from GRACE data and geophysical models

A new methodology is proposed to estimate changes in the Earth’s dynamic oblateness (?J2 or equivalently, ?5??C20) on a monthly basis. The algorithm uses monthly Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) gravity solutions, an ocean bottom pressure model and a glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model. The resulting time series agree...

Updated Delft mass transport model DMT-2: Computation and validation