Using GRACE to study hydrology (2006)

At the physics department of the University of Colorado and CIRES, I worked with Dr. Sean Swenson, Dr. John Wahr and Dr. Matt Rodell to study large-scale hydrology using GRACE measurements of Earth’s time-variable gravity field.

We used global GRACE measurements that were “destriped” using my implementation of Dr. Swenson’s destriping algorithm. These GRACE data were then compared to global water storage models driven by the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS).

Though agreement is generally good, the GRACE timeseries peaks 1-2 months after the GLDAS timeseries in many regions such as Siberia, Alaska and the Amazon. This indicates room for improvement in water storage models, and we suggest several possible causes for the discrepancy.

A poster at the 2006 AGU Fall Meeting summarized this research.

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