Abstract
In this study we use 59 monthly solutions (April 2002–May 2007) of the Earth’s gravity field obtained from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission, expressed in equivalent water height (EWH). The GRACE-derived EWH values are analysed first in terms of the secular trend and RMS-variability before applying the statistically-based Principal Component Analysis (PCA), in order to obtain the most dominant spatial and temporal variations. On a global scale, we show that only 5 modes can express more than 80% of the total variability, including all major hydrological, cryospheric and post-glacial rebound signals. As expected, globally, the most dominant temporal variation is an annual signal followed by a secular trend. Apart from these well-known signals, we show that the PCA is able to reveal other periodic and a-periodic signals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, O.B. and J Hinderer (2005). Global inter-annual gravity changes from GRACE: early results. Geophys. Res. Let., 32, L01402.
Anjasmara, I.M. (2008). Spatio-temporal analysis of GRACE gravity field variations using the Principal Component Analysis. Master Thesis, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia.
Banerjee, P. et al. (2005). The size and duration of the Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake from far-field static offsets. Science, 308, 1769–1772.
Chen J.L. et al. (2006a). Alaskan mountain glacial melting observed by satellite gravimetry. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 248, 368–378.
Chen J.L. et al. (2006b). Satellite gravity measurements confirm accelerated melting of Greenland ice sheet. Science, 313, 1958–1960.
Chen J.L. et al. (2006c). Antarctic mass rates from GRACE. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L11502.
de Viron, O.D. et al. (2006). Extracting low frequency climate signal from GRACE data. eEarth, 1, 9–14.
Ekman, M. and J. Makinen (1996). Recent postglacial rebound, gravity change and mantle flow in Fennoscandia. Geophys. J. Int., 126(1), 229–234.
Hinderer, J. et al. (2006). Seasonal changes in the European gravity field from GRACE: A comparison with superconducting gravimeters and hydrology model predictions. J. Geodyn., 41(1–3), 59–68.
Jolliffe, I.T. (2002). Principal component analysis. Springer series in statistics, 2nd ed., Springer, New York.
Kuhn, M. et al. (2005). Low-frequency variations of the North Atlantic sea level measured by TOPEX/Poseidon altimetry. Marine Geod 28, 19–37.
Luthcke S.B. et al. (2006). Recent Greenland ice mass loss by drainage system from satellite gravity observations. Science, 314, 1286–1289.
Nerem, R.S. et al. (2003). Measuring the distribution of ocean mass using GRACE. Space Sci. Rev., 108(1–2), 331–344.
Preisendorfer, R.W. (1988). Principal component analysis in meteorology and oceanography. Elsevier, New York.
Ramillien, G. et al. (2004). Global time variations of hydrological signals from GRACE satellite gravimetry. Geophys. J. Int., 158, 813–826.
Ramillien G. et al. (2006). Interannual variations of the mass balance of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets from GRACE. Global Planet. Change, 53, 198–208.
Rangelova, E. et al. (2007). Analysis of Gravity Recovery and Climat Experiment time-variable mass redistribution signals over North America by means of principal component analysis. J. Geophys. Res.,112, F03002.
Rowlands, D.D. et al. (2005). Resolving mass flux at high spatial and temporal resolution using GRACE intersatellite measurements. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L04310.
Schmidt, R. et al. (2006). GRACE observations of changes in continental water storage. Global Planet. Change, 50, 112–126.
Schrama, E.J.O. et al. (2007). Signal and noise in Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) observed surface mass variations. J. Geophys. Res.,112, B0840.
Swenson, S. et al. (2003). Estimated accuracies of regional water storage variations inferred from the gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE). Water Resour. Res., 39(8), 1223.
Tapley, B.D. et al. (2004a). GRACE measurements of mass variability in the Earth system. Science, 305, 503–505.
Tapley, B.D. et al. (2004b). The gravity recovery and climate experiment: mission overview and early results. Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L09607.
Velicogna I. and J. Wahr (2005). Greenland mass balance from GRACE. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L18505.
Wahr, J. et al. (1998). Time-variability of the Earth’s gravity field: Hydrological and oceanic effects and their possible detection using GRACE. J. Geophys. Res., 103, 30205–30230.
Wahr, J. et al. (2004). Time-variable gravity from GRACE: First results. Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L11501.
Wagner, C.D. et al. (2006). Degradation of geopotential recovery from short repeat-cycle orbits: application to GRACE monthly fields. J. Geod., 80, 94–103.
Wouters, B. and E.J.O. Schrama (2007). Improved accuracy of GRACE gravity solutions through empirical orthogonal function filtering of spherical harmonics. Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L23711.
Wu, P. (1998). Dynamics of the Ice Age earth: a modern perspective. Trans Tech Publications, Uetikon-Zuerich, Switzerland.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by Australia Partnership Scholarship (APS-AusAid). We thank The Institute of Geoscience Research (TIGeR) for funds to present this work at the IAG Symposium GGEO2008. We also thank Dr Oliver Baur from the Geodetic Institute of the University of Stuttgart, who kindly provided the GRACE mass estimates. Finally, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers who helped to considerably improve the original manuscript. This is TIGeR publication 169.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Anjasmara, I.M., Kuhn, M. (2010). Analysing Five Years of GRACE Equivalent Water Height Variations Using the Principal Component Analysis. In: Mertikas, S. (eds) Gravity, Geoid and Earth Observation. International Association of Geodesy Symposia, vol 135. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10634-7_73
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10634-7_73
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-10633-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-10634-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)