Regional GRACE-based estimates of water mass variations over Australia: validation and interpretation

Time series of regional 2 ◊ 2 Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) solutions have been com- puted from 2003 to 2011 with a 10-day resolution by using an energy integral method over Australia (112 E-156 E; 44 S-10 S). This approach uses the dynamical orbit anal- ysis of GRACE Level 1 measurements, and specially accu- rate along-track K-band range rate (KBRR) residuals with a 1 µm s 1 level of errors, to estimate the total water mass over continental regions. The advantages of regional solutions are a significant reduction of GRACE aliasing errors (i.e. north- south stripes) providing a more accurate estimation of water mass balance for hydrological applications. In this paper, the validation of these regional solutions over Australia is pre- sented, as well as their ability to describe water mass change as a response of climate forcings such as El Nino. Princi- pal component analysis of GRACE-derived total water stor- age (TWS) maps shows spatial and temporal patterns that are consistent with independent data sets (e.g. rainfall, cli- mate index and in situ observations). Regional TWS maps show higher spatial correlations with in situ water table mea- surements over Murray-Darling drainage basin (80-90 %), and they offer a better localization of hydrological structures than classical GRACE global solutions (i.e. Level 2 Groupe de Recherche en Geodesie Spatiale (GRGS)) products and 400 km independent component analysis solutions as a lin- ear combination of GRACE solutions provided by different centers.

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