GRACE Monthly Mass Grids - Land

NASA/GRACE/MASS_GRIDS/LAND
Dataset Availability
2002-04-01T00:00:00Z–2017-01-07T00:00:00Z
Dataset Provider
Earth Engine Snippet
ee.ImageCollection("NASA/GRACE/MASS_GRIDS/LAND")
Tags
crs gfz grace gravity jpl land mass nasa tellus water

Description

GRACE Tellus Monthly Mass Grids provides monthly gravitational anomalies relative to a 2004-2010 time-mean baseline. The data contained in this dataset are units of "Equivalent Water Thickness" which represent the deviations of mass in terms of vertical extent of water in centimeters. See the provider's Monthly Mass Grids Overview for more details.

The GRACE Tellus (GRCTellus) Monthly Mass Grids dataset is produced by three centers: CSR (U. Texas / Center for Space Research), GFZ (GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam), and JPL (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Each center is a part of the GRACE Ground System and generates Level-2 data (spherical harmonic fields) used in this dataset. The output includes spherical harmonic coefficients of the gravity field and of the dealiasing fields used to compute them. Since each center independently produces the coefficients, the results may be slightly different. It is recommended for most users to use the mean of all three datasets. See the provider's choosing a solution page for more details.

Note

  • Due to the sampling and post-processing of GRACE observations, surface mass variations at small spatial scales tend to be attenuated. Therefore, users should multiply the GRCTellus Land data by the scaling grid available at NASA/GRACE/MASS_GRIDS/LAND_AUX_2014.

  • The GRCTellus Land grids processed from the Spherical Harmonic Level-2 data are not suited to accurately quantify ice mass changes over Greenland or Antarctica, or glaciers and ice caps. For those areas it is recommended to use JPL's mascon solution available as the following image collection: NASA/GRACE/MASS_GRIDS/MASCON

Bands

Resolution
111320 meters

Bands

Name Units Min Max Description
lwe_thickness_csr cm -139.2* 74.88*

Equivalent liquid water thickness in centimeters calculated by CSR.

lwe_thickness_gfz cm -145.45* 70.19*

Equivalent liquid water thickness in centimeters calculated by GFZ.

lwe_thickness_jpl cm -137.94* 71.86*

Equivalent liquid water thickness in centimeters calculated by JPL.

* estimated min or max value

Image Properties

Image Properties

Name Type Description
CSR_END_TIME DOUBLE

End date in milliseconds of spherical harmonics solution from CSR.

CSR_START_TIME DOUBLE

Start date in milliseconds of spherical harmonics solution from CSR.

GFZ_END_TIME DOUBLE

End date in milliseconds of spherical harmonics solution from GFZ.

GFZ_START_TIME DOUBLE

Start date in milliseconds of spherical harmonics solution from GFZ.

JPL_END_TIME DOUBLE

End date in milliseconds of spherical harmonics solution from JPL.

JPL_START_TIME DOUBLE

Start date in milliseconds of spherical harmonics solution from JPL.

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

All NASA-produced data from the GRACE mission is made freely available for the public to use. When using any of the GRCTellus data, please add an acknowledgment: "GRACE land are available at https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov, supported by the NASA MEaSUREs Program." and cite with the citations provided.

Citations

Citations:
  • S.C. Swenson. 2012. GRACE monthly land water mass grids NETCDF RELEASE 5.0. Ver. 5.0. PO.DAAC, CA, USA. Dataset accessed [YYYY-MM-DD] at https://doi.org/10.5067/TELND-NC005.

  • Landerer F.W. and S. C. Swenson, Accuracy of scaled GRACE terrestrial water storage estimates. Water Resources Research, Vol 48, W04531, 11 PP, doi:10.1029/2011WR011453, 2012.

  • Swenson, S. C. and J. Wahr, Post-processing removal of correlated errors in GRACE data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L08402, doi:10.1029/2005GL025285, 2006.

DOIs

Explore with Earth Engine

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.ImageCollection('NASA/GRACE/MASS_GRIDS/LAND')
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2016-08-01', '2016-08-30'));
var equivalentWaterThicknessCsr = dataset.select('lwe_thickness_csr');
var equivalentWaterThicknessCsrVis = {
  min: -25.0,
  max: 25.0,
};
Map.setCenter(6.746, 46.529, 2);
Map.addLayer(
    equivalentWaterThicknessCsr, equivalentWaterThicknessCsrVis,
    'Equivalent Water Thickness CSR');
Open in Code Editor