GRACE era variability in the Earth’s oblateness: A comparison of estimates from six different sources

in Geophysical Journal International (2017), 208(2), 1126-1138

We study fluctuations in the degree-2 zonal spherical harmonic coefficient of the Earth's gravity potential, $C_{20}$, over the period 2003-2015. This coefficient is related to the Earth's oblateness and ... [more ▼]

We study fluctuations in the degree-2 zonal spherical harmonic coefficient of the Earth's gravity potential, $C_{20}$, over the period 2003-2015. This coefficient is related to the Earth's oblateness and studying its temporal variations, $\Delta C_{20}$, can be used to monitor large-scale mass movements between high and low latitude regions. We examine $\Delta C_{20}$ inferred from six different sources, including satellite laser ranging (SLR), GRACE and global geophysical fluids models. We further include estimates that we derive from measured variations in the length-of-day (LOD), from the inversion of global crustal displacements as measured by GPS, as well as from the combination of GRACE and the output of an ocean model as described by \cite{sunetal2016}. We apply a sequence of trend- and seasonal moving average filters to the different time series in order to decompose them into an interannual, a seasonal and an intraseasonal component. We then perform a comparison analysis for each component, and we further estimate the noise level contained in the different series using an extended version of the three-cornered-hat method. For the seasonal component, we generally obtain a very good agreement between the different sources, and except for the LOD-derived series, we find that over 90\% of the variance in the seasonal components can be explained by the sum of an annual and semiannual oscillation of constant amplitudes and phases, indicating that the seasonal pattern is stable over the considered time period. High consistency between the different estimates is also observed for the intraseasonal component, except for the solution from GRACE, which is known to be affected by a strong tide-like alias with a period of about 161 days. Estimated interannual components from the different sources are generally in agreement with each other, although estimates from GRACE and LOD present some discrepancies. Slight deviations are further observed for the estimate from the geophysical models, likely to be related to the omission of polar ice and groundwater changes in the model combination we use. On the other hand, these processes do not seem to play an important role at seasonal and shorter time scales, as the sum of modelled atmospheric, oceanic and hydrological effects effectively explains the observed $C_{20}$ variations at those scales. We generally obtain very good results for the solution from SLR, and we confirm that this well-established technique accurately tracks changes in $C_{20}$. Good agreement is further observed for the estimate from the GPS inversion, showing that this indirect method is successful in capturing fluctuations in $C_{20}$ on scales ranging from intra- to interannual. Obtaining accurate estimates from LOD, however, remains a challenging task and more reliable models of atmospheric wind fields are needed in order to obtain high-quality $\Delta C_{20}$, in particular at the seasonal scale. The combination of GRACE data and the output of an ocean model appears to be a promising approach, particularly since corresponding $\Delta C_{20}$ is not affected by tide-like aliases, and generally gives better results than the solution from GRACE, which still seems to be of rather poor quality. [less ▲]

Quality Evaluation of the Weekly Vertical Loading Effects Induced from Continental Water Storage Models

in Willis, Pascal (Ed.) Proceedings of the 2013 IAG Scientific Assembly, Potsdam, Germany, 1-6 September, 2013 (2015)

To remove continental water storage (CWS) signals from the GPS data, CWS mass models are needed to obtain predicted surface displacements. We compared weekly GPS height time series with five CWS models ... [more ▼]

To remove continental water storage (CWS) signals from the GPS data, CWS mass models are needed to obtain predicted surface displacements. We compared weekly GPS height time series with five CWS models: (1) the monthly and (2) three-hourly Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS); (3) the monthly and (4) one-hourly Modern- Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA); (5) the six-hourly National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Department of Energy (NCEP-DOE) global reanalysis products (NCEP-R-2). We find that of the 344 selected global IGS stations, more than 77% of stations have their weighted root mean square (WRMS) reduced in the weekly GPS height by using both the GLDAS and MERRA CWS products to model the surface displacement, and the best improvement concentrate mainly in North America and Eurasia.We find that the one-hourly MERRA-Land dataset is the most appropriate product for modeling weekly vertical surface displacement caused by CWS variations. The threehourly GLDAS data ranks the second, while the GLDAS and MERRA monthly products rank the third. The higher spatial resolution MERRA product improves the performance of the CWS model in reducing the scatter of the GPS height by about 2–6% compared with the GLDAS. Under the same spatial resolution, the higher temporal resolution could also improve the performance by almost the same magnitude. We also confirm that removing the ATML and NTOL effects from the weekly GPS height would remarkably improve the performance of CWS model in correcting the GPS height by at least 10%, especially for coastal and island stations. Since the GLDAS product has a much greater latency than the MERRA product, MERRA would be a better choice to model surface displacements from CWS. Finally, we find that the NCEP-R-2 data is not sufficiently precise to be used for this application. Further work is still required to determine the reason. [less ▲]