Preliminary observations of global ocean mass variations with GRACE

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Abstract
Monthly estimates of the Earth\textquoterights 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.
Year of Publication
2004
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
31
Number of Pages
13310
Date Published
07/2004
URL
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004GeoRL..3113310C
DOI
10.1029/2004GL020461
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