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1.
Most GPS coordinate time series, surface displacements derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), and loading models display significant annual signals at many regions. This paper compares the annual signals of the GPS position time series from the Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (CDDIS), estimates of loading from GRACE monthly gravity field models calculated by three processing centers (Center of Spatial Research, CSR; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL; GeoForschungsZentrum, GFZ) and three geophysical fluids models (National Center for Environmental Prediction, NCEP; Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, ECCO; Global Land Data Assimilation System, GLDAS) for 270 globally distributed stations for the period 2003-2011. The results show that annual variations derived from the level-2 products from the three GRACE product centers are very similar. The absolute difference in annual amplitude between any two centers is never larger than 1.25 mm in the vertical and 0.11 mm in horizontal displacement. The mean phase differences of the GRACE results are less than ten days for all three components. When we correct the GPS vertical coordinate time series using the GRACE annual amplitudes using the products from three GRACE analysis centers, we find that we are able to reduce the GPS annual signal in the vertical at about 80% stations and the average reduction is about 47%. In the north and the east, the annual amplitude is reduced on 77% and 72% of the stations with the average reduction 32% and 33%. We also compare the annual surface displacement signal derived from two environmental models; the two models use the same atmospheric and non-tidal ocean loading and differ only in the continental water storage model that we use, either NCEP or GLDAS. We find that the model containing the GLDAS continental water storage is able to better reduce the annual signal in the GPS coordinate time series. 相似文献
2.
《Journal of Geodynamics》2010,49(3-5):157-165
Since 2002 the Earth’s gravity field is globally observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission. The GRACE monthly gravity field solutions, available from several analysis centres, reflect mass variations in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. Due to correlated noise contained in these solutions, it is, however, first necessary to apply an appropriate filtering technique. The resulting, smoothed time series are applied not only to determine variations with different periodic signatures (e.g., seasonal, short and medium-term), but to derive long-periodic mass variations and secular trends as well. As the GRACE monthly solutions always show the integral effect of all mass variations, for separation of single processes, like the GIA (Glacial isostatic adjustment)-related mass increase in Fennoscandia, appropriate reduction models (e.g. from hydrology) are necessary.In this study we show for the example of the Fennoscandian uplift area that GRACE solutions from different analysis centres yield considerably different secular trends. Furthermore, it turns out that the inevitable filtering of the monthly gravity field models affects not only the amplitudes of the signals, but also their spatial resolution and distribution such as the spatial form of the detected signals. It also becomes evident that the determination of trends has to be performed together with the determination of periodic components. All periodic terms which are really contained in the data, and only such, have to be included. The restricted time span of the available GRACE measurements, however, limits the separation of long-periodic and secular signals. It is shown that varying the analysis time span affects the results considerably. Finally, a reduction of hydrological signals from the detected integral secular trends using global hydrological models (WGHM, LaDWorld, GLDAS) is attempted. The differences among the trends resulting from different models illustrate that the state-of-the-art hydrology models are not suitable for this purpose as yet. Consequently, taking the GRACE monthly gravity field solutions from one centre, choosing a single filter and applying an insufficiently reliable reduction model leads sometimes to a misinterpretation of considered geophysical processes. Therefore, one has to be cautious with the final interpretation of the results. 相似文献
3.
Comparison of Daily GRACE Gravity Field and Numerical Water Storage Models for De-aliasing of Satellite Gravimetry Observations 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
L. Zenner I. Bergmann-Wolf H. Dobslaw T. Gruber A. Güntner M. Wattenbach S. Esselborn R. Dill 《Surveys in Geophysics》2014,35(6):1251-1266
Reducing aliasing effects of insufficiently modelled high-frequent, non-tidal mass variations of the atmosphere, the oceans and the hydrosphere in gravity field models derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission is the topic of this study. The signal content of the daily GRACE gravity field model series (ITG-Kalman) is compared to high-frequency bottom pressure variability and terrestrially stored water variations obtained from recent numerical simulations from an ocean circulation model (OMCT) and two hydrological models (WaterGAP Global Hydrology Model, Land Surface Discharge Model). Our results show that daily estimates of ocean bottom pressure from the most recent OMCT simulations and the daily ITG-Kalman solutions are able to explain up to 40 % of extra-tropical sea-level variability in the Southern Ocean. In contrast to this, the daily ITG-Kalman series and simulated continental total water storage variability largely disagree at periods below 30 days. Therefore, as long as no adequate hydrological model will become available, the daily ITG-Kalman series can be regarded as a good initial proxy for high-frequency mass variations at a global scale. As a second result of this study, based on monthly solutions as well as daily observation residuals, it is shown that applying this GRACE-derived de-aliasing model supports the determination of the time-variable gravity field from GRACE data and the subsequent geophysical interpretation. This leads us to the recommendation that future satellite concepts for determining mass variations in the Earth system should be capable of observing higher frequeny signals with sufficient spatial resolution. 相似文献
4.
Shengnan Ni Jianli Chen Clark R. Wilson Jin Li Xiaogong Hu Rong Fu 《Surveys in Geophysics》2018,39(1):1-22
Improved data quality of extended record of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite gravity solutions enables better understanding of terrestrial water storage (TWS) variations. Connections of TWS and climate change are critical to investigate regional and global water cycles. In this study, we provide a comprehensive analysis of global connections between interannual TWS changes and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, using multiple sources of data, including GRACE measurements, land surface model (LSM) predictions and precipitation observations. We use cross-correlation and coherence spectrum analysis to examine global connections between interannual TWS changes and the Niño 3.4 index, and select four river basins (Amazon, Orinoco, Colorado, and Lena) for more detailed analysis. The results indicate that interannual TWS changes are strongly correlated with ENSO over much of the globe, with maximum cross-correlation coefficients up to ~0.70, well above the 95% significance level (~0.29) derived by the Monte Carlo experiments. The strongest correlations are found in tropical and subtropical regions, especially in the Amazon, Orinoco, and La Plata basins. While both GRACE and LSM TWS estimates show reasonably good correlations with ENSO and generally consistent spatial correlation patterns, notably higher correlations are found between GRACE TWS and ENSO. The existence of significant correlations in middle–high latitudes shows the large-scale impact of ENSO on the global water cycle. 相似文献
5.
Recent satellite missions (CHAMP, GRACE) are now returning data on the time variation of the gravity field with harmonic coefficients computed every 4 weeks. The promise is to achieve a sub-microgal accuracy that will define continental mass variations involving large-scale hydrology. With this in mind, we examine the time varying gravity field over central Europe using a limited number of high quality ground-based superconducting gravimeter stations within the Global Geodynamics Project (GGP). Our purpose is to see whether there are coherent signals between the individual stations and to compare the regional component with that predicted from models of continental hydrology. The results are encouraging. We have found, using empirical orthogonal eigenfunctions of the gravity data that a clear annual signal is present that is consistent in phase (low amplitudes in summer) and amplitude (1–3 microgal) with that determined from a large-scale model of land water in connection with global climate modeling. More work is required to define how the gravity field is related to large-scale soil moisture and other mass variations, and we have yet to compare our results to the latest satellite-derived data. 相似文献
6.
GPS技术能以高空间和高时间分辨率监测地表形变.但由于测量原理的不同,GPS监测的地表形变与GRACE存在差异.本文比较了ITRF2008-GPS残差序列与基于CSR的RL05版本的GRACE球谐系数的地表形变序列的差异.结果表明,GPS和GRACE的周年变化在高程方向上具有较好的一致性,但水平方向的差异明显.重点分析了影响GPS/GRACE地表形变差异(尤其是水平方向)的三个因素:不同GPS站时间序列间的不确定性,热弹性形变和区域形变.GPS站地表形变本身的不确定度在一定程度上导致了GPS/GRACE间的差异(特别是水平方向).结合热弹性形变理论指出,由温度变化引起的热弹性形变也是导致GPS/GRACE的南北方向差异的主要原因之一.因此利用GPS数据研究地表质量负载时,必须消除热弹性形变的影响.区域负载对GPS/GRACE水平方向差异的影响也是不可忽略的,特别是对欧洲区域. 相似文献
7.
S. Werth A. Güntner S. Petrovic R. Schmidt 《Earth and Planetary Science Letters》2009,277(1-2):166-173
Time-variable gravity data of the GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) satellite mission provide global information on temporal variations of continental water storage. In this study, we incorporate GRACE data for the first time directly into the tuning process of a global hydrological model to improve simulations of the continental water cycle. For the WaterGAP Global Hydrology Model (WGHM), we adopt a multi-objective calibration framework to constrain model predictions by both measured river discharge and water storage variations from GRACE and illustrate it on the example of three large river basins: Amazon, Mississippi and Congo. The approach leads to improved simulation results with regard to both objectives. In case of monthly total water storage variations we obtained a RMSE reduction of about 25 mm for the Amazon, 6 mm for the Mississippi and 1 mm for the Congo river basin. The results highlight the valuable nature of GRACE data when merged into large-scale hydrological modeling. Furthermore, they reveal the utility of the multi-objective calibration framework for the integration of remote sensing data into hydrological models. 相似文献
8.
Presently, two satellite missions, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE), are making detailed measurements of the Earth’s gravity field, from which the geoid can be obtained. The mean dynamic topography (MDT) is the difference between the time-averaged sea surface height and the geoid. The GOCE mission is aimed at determining the geoid with superior accuracy and spatial resolution, so that a more accurate MDT can be estimated. In this study, we determine the mean positions of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current fronts using the purely geodetic estimates of the MDT constructed from an altimetric mean sea surface and GOCE and GRACE geoids. Overall, the frontal positions obtained from the GOCE and GRACE MDTs are close to each other. This means that these independent estimates are robust and can potentially be used to validate frontal positions obtained from sparse and irregular in situ measurements. The geodetic frontal positions are compared to earlier estimates as well as to those derived from MDTs based on satellite and in situ measurements and those obtained from an ocean data synthesis product. The position of the Sub-Antarctic Front identified in the GOCE MDT is found to be in better agreement with the previous estimates than that identified in the GRACE MDT. The geostrophic velocities derived from the GOCE MDT are also closer to observations than those derived from the GRACE MDT. Our results thus show that the GOCE mission represents an improvement upon GRACE in terms of the time-averaged geoid. 相似文献
9.
Tackling mass redistribution phenomena by time-dependent GRACE- and terrestrial gravity observations
Time variable gravity field models derived from the satellite mission GRACE have been demonstrated to be consistent with water mass variations in the global hydrological cycle. Independent observations are provided by terrestrial measurements. In order to achieve a maximum of reliability and information gain, ground-based gravity observations may be deployed for comparison with the gravity field variations derived from the GRACE satellite mission. In this context, the data of the network of superconducting gravimeters (SG) of the ‘Global Geodynamics Project’ (GGP) are of particular interest. This study is focused on the dense SG network in Central Europe with its long-term gravity observations. It is shown that after the separation and reduction of local hydrological effects in the SG observations especially for subsurface stations, the time-variable gravity signals from GRACE agree well with the terrestrial observations from the SG station cluster.Station stability of the SG sites with respect to vertical deformations was checked by GNSS based observations. Most of the variability can be explained by loading effects due to changes in continental water storage, and, in general, the stability of all stations has been confirmed.From comparisons based on correlation and coherence analyses in combination with the root mean square (RMS) variability of the time series emerges, that the maximum correspondence between the SG and GRACE time series is achieved when filtering the GRACE data with Gaussian filters of about 1000 km filter length, which is in accordance with previous publications.Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF) analysis was applied to the gravity time series in order to identify common characteristic spatial and temporal patterns. The high correspondence of the first modes for GRACE and SG data implies that the first EOF mode represents a large-scale (Central European) time-variable gravity signal seen by both the GRACE satellites and the SG cluster. 相似文献
10.
For the first time, a dedicated release of the hydrology and water use model WaterGAP3, has been developed to spatially explicit calculate hydrological fluxes within river basins draining into the Mediterranean and Black Sea. The main differences between the new regional version of the global WaterGAP3 model and the previously applied global version WaterGAP2 can be found in the spatial resolution, snow modeling, and water use modeling. Comparison with observations shows that WaterGAP3 features a more realistic representation of modeled river runoff and inflow into both seas. WaterGAP3 generates more inflow to both seas than WaterGAP2. In the WaterGAP3 simulation, contributions to the total runoff into the Black Sea from individual discharge regions show in general a good agreement to climatology derived runoff, but lesser importance of Georgian rivers for the basin's water. After the successful model validation WaterGAP3 has been applied to correct estimates of seawater mass derived from the GRACE gravity mission and to account for freshwater inflow into both basins. The performance of the WaterGAP3 regional solution has been evaluated by comparing the seawater mass derived from GRACE corrected for the leakage of continental hydrology, to an independent estimate derived from steric-corrected satellite altimetry with steric correction from regional oceanographic models. The agreement is higher in the Mediterranean Sea than in the Black Sea. Results using WaterGAP3 and WaterGAP2 are not significantly different. However the agreement with the altimetry-derived results is higher using WaterGAP2, due to the smaller annual amplitude of the continental hydrology leakage from WaterGAP3. We conclude that the regional model WaterGAP3 is capable of realistically quantifying water mass variation in the region, further developments have been identified. 相似文献
11.
Since 2002 the two GRACE satellites observe the time varying gravity signal mainly caused by the sum of mass variations within the Earth subsystems ocean, atmosphere, and continental hydrosphere. It is a challenging problem to separate the integral GRACE signal and to identify and quantify the mass variations of the individual subsystems. This work proves first by a closed loop simulation that such a decomposition is successful by means of empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) derived from geophysical models and a least-squares adjustment with a multivariate Gauss–Markov model with time coefficients parameterized. The geophysical models are used to synthesize GRACE observations which are subsequently separated leading to time coefficients coinciding with those of the predefined models. In a second step the separation is performed with real, unfiltered time series of 5 years of monthly GRACE gravity field models (with atmospheric and oceanic background models reconstructed) and a limited number of EOFs. The reconstructed time coefficients are in good agreement with the original ones and exhibit high correlations (0.70 for ocean, 0.91 for atmosphere and 0.93 for continental hydrosphere). Analysis of GRACE residuals and the correlation among the time coefficients substantiate a successful identification. 相似文献
12.
本文利用动力学方法建立GRACE(Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment)K波段距离变率(KBRR)观测、轨道观测与重力场系数的观测方程,通过GRACE Level 1B观测数据,成功解算出全球月时变重力场模型——IGG时变重力场模型,并将2008—2009年的解算结果与GRACE三大数据处理机构美国德克萨斯大学空间中心CSR(Center for Space Research)、美国宇航局喷气推进实验室JPL(Jet Propulsion Laboratory)和德国地学研究中心GFZ(GeoForschungs Zentrum)发布的最新全球时变重力场模型进行详细对比分析.结果表明:IGG结果在全球质量异常、中国及周边地区质量异常的趋势变化、全球质量异常均方差、2~60每阶位系数差值以及亚马逊流域和撒哈拉沙漠等典型区域平均质量异常等方面与CSR、JPL和GFZ解算的RL05结果较为一致.其中,IGG解算结果在2~20阶与CSR、GFZ和JPL最新解算结果基本一致,20~40阶IGG解算结果与GFZ、JPL单位最新解算结果较为接近,大于40阶IGG结果介于CSR与GFZ、JPL之间;亚马逊流域平均质量异常周年振幅IGG、CSR、GFZ和JPL获取到的结果分别为17.6±1.1cm、18.9±1.2cm、17.8±0.9cm和18.9±1.0cm等效水柱高.利用撒哈拉沙漠地区的平均质量异常做反演精度评定,IGG、CSR、GFZ和JPL的时变重力场获取到的平均质量异常均方差分别为1.1cm、0.9cm、0.8cm和1.2cm,表明IGG解算结果与CSR、GFZ和JPL最新发布的RL05结果在同一精度水平. 相似文献
13.
In this study, a scheme is presented to estimate groundwater storage variations in Iran. The variations are estimated using 11 years of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiments (GRACE) observations from period of 2003 to April 2014 in combination with the outputs of Global Land Data Assimilation Systems (GLDAS) model including soil moisture, snow water equivalent, and total canopy water storage. To do so, the sums of GLDAS outputs are subtracted from terrestrial water storage variations determined by GRACE observations. Because of stripping errors in the GRACE data, two methodologies based on wavelet analysis and Gaussian filtering are applied to refine the GRACE data. It is shown that the wavelet approach could better localize the desired signal and increase the signal‐to‐noise ratio and thus results in more accurate estimation of groundwater storage variations. To validate the results of our procedure in estimation of ground water storage variations, they are compared with the measurements of pisometric wells data near the Urmia Lake which shows favorable agreements with our results. 相似文献
14.
Mohammad J. Tourian Johannes Riegger Nico Sneeuw Balaji Devaraju 《Studia Geophysica et Geodaetica》2011,55(4):627-640
Gravity measurements within the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provide a direct measure of monthly changes
in mass over the Earth’s land masses. As such changes in mass mainly correspond to water storage changes, these measurements
allow to close the continental water balance on large spatial scales and on a monthly time scale within the respective error
bounds. When quantifying uncertainties, positive and negative peaks are detected in GRACE aggregated monthly time series (from
different data providers) that do not correspond to hydrological or hydro-meteorological signals. These peaks must be interpreted
as outliers, which carry the danger of signal degradation. In this paper an algorithm is developed to identify outliers and
replace them with hydrologically plausible values. The algorithm is based on a statistical approach in which hydrological
and hydro-meteorological signals are used to control the algorithm. The procedure of outlier detection is verified by evaluating
catchment based aggregated GRACE monthly signals with ground truth from hydrology and hydro-meteorological signals. The results
show improvement in the correlation of GRACE versus hydrometeorological and hydrological signals in most catchments. Also,
the noise level is significantly reduced over 255 largest catchments. 相似文献
15.
Temporal mass variations in the Earth system, which can be detected from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission data, cause temporal variations of geoid heights. The main objective of this contribution is to analyze temporal variations of geoid heights over the area of Poland using global geopotential models (GGMs) developed on the basis of GRACE mission data. Time series of geoid height variations were calculated for the chosen subareas of the aforementioned area using those GGMs. Thereafter, these variations were analyzed using two different methods. On the basis of the analysis results, models of temporal geoid height variations were developed and discussed. The possibility of prediction of geoid height variations using GRACE mission data over the area of Poland was also investigated. The main findings reveal that the geoid height over the area of Poland vary within 1.1 cm which should be considered when defining the geoid model of 1 cm accuracy for this area. 相似文献
16.
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) has been measuring temporal and spatial variations of mass redistribution within the Earth system since 2002. As large earthquakes cause significant mass changes on and under the Earth’s surface, GRACE provides a new means from space to observe mass redistribution due to earthquake deformations. GRACE serves as a good complement to other earthquake measurements because of its extensive spatial coverage and being free from terrestrial restriction. During its over 10 years mission, GRACE has successfully detected seismic gravitational changes of several giant earthquakes, which include the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, 2010 Maule (Chile) earthquake, and 2011 Tohoku-Oki (Japan) earthquake. In this review, we describe by examples how to process GRACE time-variable gravity data to retrieve seismic signals, and summarize the results of recent studies that apply GRACE observations to detect co- and post-seismic signals and constrain fault slip models and viscous lithospheric structures. We also discuss major problems and give an outlook in this field of GRACE application. 相似文献
17.
Jianli Chen James S. Famigliett Bridget R. Scanlon Matthew Rodell 《Surveys in Geophysics》2016,37(2):397-417
Satellite gravity measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provide quantitative measurement of terrestrial water storage (TWS) changes with unprecedented accuracy. Combining GRACE-observed TWS changes and independent estimates of water change in soil and snow and surface reservoirs offers a means for estimating groundwater storage change. Since its launch in March 2002, GRACE time-variable gravity data have been successfully used to quantify long-term groundwater storage changes in different regions over the world, including northwest India, the High Plains Aquifer and the Central Valley in the USA, the North China Plain, Middle East, and southern Murray–Darling Basin in Australia, where groundwater storage has been significantly depleted in recent years (or decades). It is difficult to rely on in situ groundwater measurements for accurate quantification of large, regional-scale groundwater storage changes, especially at long timescales due to inadequate spatial and temporal coverage of in situ data and uncertainties in storage coefficients. The now nearly 13 years of GRACE gravity data provide a successful and unique complementary tool for monitoring and measuring groundwater changes on a global and regional basis. Despite the successful applications of GRACE in studying global groundwater storage change, there are still some major challenges limiting the application and interpretation of GRACE data. In this paper, we present an overview of GRACE applications in groundwater studies and discuss if and how the main challenges to using GRACE data can be addressed. 相似文献
18.
The progress in GRACE data processing should improve the estimation of low degree spherical harmonics which are expected to agree better with Earth's rotation observations. The polar motion and length-of-day excitations determined from the spherical harmonics of the GRGS latest release (RL02) are explored and compared to the previous release (RL01). The RL02 gives best fit of the observed annual variations than RL01 and geophysical models do. However, the observed residual signal obtained after removing annual and semiannual oscillations is still better explained by the geophysical models even if RL02 estimates are improved at these frequencies scales. Linear trends are also estimated over study period (2003–2008). The linear trends of χ1 based on GRACE RL01/02 and EOP are similar but they are very different for χ2. Further studies with longer time series of GRACE and future gravimetric missions could help better interpret the long term variations and the effects of ice sheet mass loss or post glacial rebound. Concerning LOD variations, GRACE/LAGEOS mass displacement information brings better agreement with EOP observations, compared to the pressure term estimated by models, however the RL02 has not shown significant improvement. 相似文献
19.
A. Groh H. Ewert R. Rosenau E. Fagiolini C. Gruber D. Floricioiu W. Abdel Jaber S. Linow F. Flechtner M. Eineder W. Dierking R. Dietrich 《Surveys in Geophysics》2014,35(6):1481-1505
This study examines present-day changes of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) by means of different data sets. We make use of monthly gravity field solutions acquired by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to study mass changes of the AIS for a 10-year period. In addition to ‘standard’ solutions of release 05, solutions based on radial base functions were used. Both solutions reveal an increased mass loss in recent years. For a 6-year period surface-height changes were inferred from laser altimetry data provided by the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). The basin-scale volume trends were converted into mass changes and were compared with the GRACE estimates for the same period. Focussing on the Thwaites Glacier, Landsat optical imagery was utilised to determine ice-flow velocities for a period of more than two decades. This data set was extended by means of high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the TerraSAR-X mission, revealing an accelerated ice flow of all parts of the glacier. ICESat data over the Thwaites Glacier were complemented by digital elevation models inferred from TanDEM-X data. This extended data set exhibits an increased surface lowering in recent times. Passive microwave remote sensing data prove the long-term stability of the accumulation rates in a low accumulation zone in East Antarctica over several decades. Finally, we discuss the main error sources of present-day mass-balance estimates: the glacial isostatic adjustment effect for GRACE as well as the biases between laser operational periods and the volume–mass conversion for ICESat. 相似文献
20.
R. Klees X. Liu T. Wittwer B. C. Gunter E. A. Revtova R. Tenzer P. Ditmar H. C. Winsemius H. H. G. Savenije 《Surveys in Geophysics》2008,29(4-5):335-359
When using GRACE as a tool for hydrology, many different gravity field model products are now available to the end user. The traditional spherical harmonics solutions produced from GRACE are typically obtained through an optimization of the gravity field data at the global scale, and are generated by a number of processing centers around the world. Alternatives to this global approach include so-called regional techniques, for which many variants exist, but whose common trait is that they only use the gravity data collected over the area of interest to generate the solution. To determine whether these regional solutions hold any advantage over the global techniques in terms of overall accuracy, a range of comparisons were made using some of the more widely used regional and global methods currently available. The regional techniques tested made use of either spherical radial basis functions or single layer densities (i.e., mascons), with the global solutions having been obtained from the various major processing centers. The solutions were evaluated using a range of computed statistics over a selection of major river basins, which were globally distributed and ranged in size from 1 to 6 million km2. For one of the basins tested, the Zambezi, additional validation tests were conducted through comparisons against a custom designed regional hydrology model of the region. We could not prove that current regional models perform better than global ones. Monthly mean water storage variations agree at the level of 0.02 m equivalent water height. The differences in terms of monthly mean water storage variations between regional and global solutions are comparable with the differences among only global or regional solutions. Typically they reach values of 0.02 m equivalent water heights, which seems to be the level of accuracy of current GRACE solutions for river basins above 1 million km2. The amplitudes of the seasonal mass variations agree at the sub-centimetre level. Evident from all of the comparisons shown is the importance that the choice of regularization, or spatial filtering, can have on the solution quality. This was found to be true for global as well as regional techniques. 相似文献