American Geophysical Union Become an AGU Member
Subscribe to AGU Journals		 AGU Home AGU Publications

Read Full Article (file size: 99592 bytes)    Cited by

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L13310, doi:10.1029/2004GL020461, 2004

Preliminary observations of global ocean mass variations with GRACE

Don P. Chambers

Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA


John Wahr

Department of Physics, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA


R. Steven Nerem

Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA


Abstract

Monthly estimates of the Earth's gravitational field from the GRACE mission are used to construct a time-series of global mean ocean mass variations between August 2002 and December 2003. This time-series is compared to a mean climatology determined from satellite altimeter measurements of global mean sea level corrected for the steric variation. The GRACE observations show a seasonal exchange of water mass with the continents of the same magnitude (∼8.5 mm) and phase (maximum in early- to mid-October) as the steric-corrected altimetry. This is one of the first direct validations over the ocean of the primary GRACE science mission to measure time-variable transports of water mass in the Earth system, and it suggests that GRACE data can be used to measure non-steric mean sea level variations which is important for climate change studies.

Received 6 May 2004; accepted 15 June 2004; published 14 July 2004.

Index Terms: 1655 Global Change: Water cycles (1836); 1836 Hydrology: Hydrologic budget (1655); 4556 Oceanography: Physical: Sea level variations.

Read Full Article (file size: 99592 bytes)    Cited by

Citation: Chambers, D. P., J. Wahr, and R. S. Nerem (2004), Preliminary observations of global ocean mass variations with GRACE, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L13310, doi:10.1029/2004GL020461.