Observing ocean heat content using satellite gravity and altimetry

Jayne, Steven R.; Wahr, John; Bryan, Frank O.

doi:10.1029/2002jc001619

Cited by 57 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Over the ocean, these mass variations represent fluctuations in ocean bottom pressure [e.g., Jayne et al, 2003]. Chambers et al [2004] first demonstrated that GRACE could measure the variation in the global mean ocean mass (OBP) quite accurately.…”

Section: Obp and Tws From Gracementioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrological and oceanic effects on polar motion from GRACE and models

Jin¹,

Chambers²,

Tapley³

2010

J. Geophys. Res.

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[1] Terrestrial water storage (TWS) and ocean bottom pressure (OBP) are major contributors to the observed polar motion excitations, second only to atmospheric mass movement. However, quantitative assessment of the hydrological and oceanic effects on polar motion remains unclear because of the lack of global observations. In this paper, hydrological and oceanic mass excitations to polar motion are investigated using monthly TWS and OBP derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) for January 2003 until December 2008. The results from this analysis are compared with hydrological model excitations from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and oceanic model excitations obtained from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) using Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO). Results show that the GRACE-derived OBP and TWS better explain the geodetic residual polar motion excitations for the Px component at the annual period, while the GRACE OBP and ECMWF hydrological angular momentum agree better with the geodetic residuals for the annual Py excitation. GRACE ocean and hydrology excitations better explain the geodetic residuals for the semiannual Py excitation. However, the JPL ECCO and ECMWF models better explain the intraseasonal geodetic residual of polar motion excitation in the Px and Py components. The GRACE data demonstrate much higher intraseasonal variability than either the models or the geodetic observations.

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Section: Obp and Tws From Gracementioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrological and oceanic effects on polar motion from GRACE and models

Jin¹,

Chambers²,

Tapley³

2010

J. Geophys. Res.

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“…In our analysis, the estimates of the sea level anomaly are 3.7 cm on average (Figure 3), which is closer to the point RMS errors of about 3 cm in [31].…”

Section: A Priori Constraintmentioning

confidence: 51%

“…Expressed in terms of equivalent water thickness, the time-varying OBP is related to sterically corrected altimeter data at a certain point [31,32]:…”

Section: Ocean Bottom Pressure and Satellite Altimetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Surface Mass Variations from Continuous GPS Observations and Satellite Altimetry Data

Zhang

Jin

2017

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission is able to observe the global large-scale mass and water cycle for the first time with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. However, no other time-varying gravity fields validate GRACE. Furthermore, the C 20 of GRACE is poor, and no GRACE data are available before 2002 and there will likely be a gap between the GRACE and GRACE-FOLLOW-ON mission. To compensate for GRACE's shortcomings, in this paper, we provide an alternative way to invert Earth's time-varying gravity field, using a priori degree variance as a constraint on amplitudes of Stoke's coefficients up to degree and order 60, by combining continuous GPS coordinate time series and satellite altimetry (SA) mean sea level anomaly data from January 2003 to December 2012. Analysis results show that our estimated zonal low-degree gravity coefficients agree well with those of GRACE, and large-scale mass distributions are also investigated and assessed. It was clear that our method effectively detected global large-scale mass changes, which is consistent with GRACE observations and the GLDAS model, revealing the minimums of annual water cycle in the Amazon in September and October. The global mean mass uncertainty of our solution is about two times larger than that of GRACE after applying a Gaussian spatial filter with a half wavelength at 500 km. The sensitivity analysis further shows that ground GPS observations dominate the lower-degree coefficients but fail to contribute to the higher-degree coefficients, while SA plays a complementary role at higher-degree coefficients. Consequently, a comparison in both the spherical harmonic and geographic domain confirms our global inversion for the time-varying gravity field from GPS and Satellite Altimetry.

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“…In the future, these hydrographic cruises must be augmented by an array of deep floats, moored instruments, gliders, or a combination thereof (e.g., [53]). Improvements in remotely sensed measurements of vertically integrated ocean mass (or equivalently bottom pressure, see [22]) such as from the proposed GRACE-II mission could also help constrain the deep density field when combined with sea level and upper ocean information.…”

Section: Figure 4 the Number Of Global Temperature Observations Per mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Salinity data from CTDs and velocity data from current meters and acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) are usually used for validation. Gravity measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and the newly launched Gravity field and steady-state Ocean circulation Explorer (GOCE) provide estimates of the geoid for use with altimetry as well as derived bottom pressure estimates (e.g., [22], [23]). …”

Section: The Current Global Synthesis Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%