Next Generation Gravity Mission Elements of the Mass Change and Geoscience International Constellation: From Orbit Selection to Instrument and Mission Design

ESA’s Next Generation Gravity Mission (NGGM) is a candidate Mission of Opportunity for ESA–NASA cooperation in the frame of the Mass Change and Geosciences International Constellation (MAGIC). The mission aims at enabling long-term monitoring of the temporal variations of Earth’s gravity field at relatively high temporal (down to 3 days) and...

Assessing Global Present-Day Surface Mass Transport and Glacial Isostatic Adjustment From Inversion of Geodetic Observations

Long-term monitoring of global mass transport within the Earth system improves our ability to mitigate natural hazards and better understand their relations to climate change. Satellite gravity is widely used to monitor surface mass variations for its unprecedented spatial and temporal coverage. However, the gravity data contain signals from...

Separating Long-Term and Short-Term Mass Changes of Antarctic Ice Drainage Basins: A Coupled State Space Analysis of Satellite Observations and Model Products

Satellite gravimetry and altimetry measurements record gravity and elevation changes, respectively, which are useful for determining mass and volume change of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Common methods employ products from regional climate modeling and firn modeling to aid interpretation and to link volume changes to mass changes. Estimating...

Evaluating GRACE Mass Change Time Series for the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheet—Methods and Results

Satellite gravimetry data acquired by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) allows to derive the temporal evolution in ice mass for both the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) and the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). Various algorithms have been used in a wide range of studies to generate Gravimetric Mass Balance (GMB) products. Results from...

Separating Geophysical Signals Using GRACE and High-Resolution Data: A Case Study in Antarctica

To fully exploit data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), we separate geophysical signals observed by GRACE in Antarctica by deriving high-spatial resolution maps for present-day glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) and ice-mass changes with the least possible noise level. For this, we simultaneously (i) improve the...

Separating glacial isostatic adjustment and ice-mass change signals in Antarctica using satellite data

The main goal of this thesis involves the development of a refined methodology to<br/>separate the mass change signals associated with glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA)<br/>from those of surface ice/firn by exploiting the strengths of independent data sets,<br/>such as those from gravimetry, altimetry, climate data, and others. To achieve this,...

Antarctic outlet glacier mass change resolved at basin scale from satellite gravity gradiometry

The orbit and instrumental measurement of the Gravity Field and Steady State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite mission offer the highest ever resolution capabilities for mapping Earth's gravity field from space. However, past analysis predicted that GOCE would not detect changes in ice sheet mass. Here we demonstrate that GOCE gravity...

A comparison of coincident GRACE and ICESat data over Antarctica

In this study, we present a comparison of coincident GRACE and ICESat data over Antarctica. The analysis focused on the secular changes over a 4-year period spanning from 2003 to 2007, using the recently reprocessed and publicly available data sets for both missions. The results show that the two independent data sets possess strong spatial...

Tree rainfall interception measured by stem compression

A method for measuring whole-tree interception of precipitation is presented which employs mechanical displacement sensors to measure trunk compression caused by the water captured by the tree. This direct and nondestructive method is demonstrated to be sensitive to less than 5 kg of interception field tests in Netherlands and Ghana.