Mass Flux Solution in the Tibetan Plateau Using Mascon Modeling

Mascon modeling is used in this paper to produce the mass flux solutions in the Tibetan Plateau. In the mascon modeling, the pseudo observations and their covariance matrices are derived from the GRACE monthly gravity field models. The sampling density of the pseudo observations is determined based on the eigenvalues of the covariance matrices. In the Tibetan Plateau, the sampling density of per 1.5° is the most appropriate among all choices. The mass flux variations from 2003 to 2014 are presented in this paper, which show large mass loss (about −15.5 Gt/year) in Tianshan, North India, and Eastern Himalaya, as well as strong positive signals (about 9 Gt/year) in the Inner Tibetan Plateau. After the glacier isostatic adjustment effects from Pau-5-AUT model are removed, the mass change rates in the Tibetan Plateau derived from CSR RL05, JPL RL05, GFZ RL05a, and Tongji-GRACE02 monthly models are −6.41 ± 4.74 Gt/year, −5.87 ± 4.88 Gt/year, −6.08 ± 4.65 Gt/year, and −11.50 ± 4.79 Gt/year, respectively, which indicate slight mass loss in this area. Our results confirm that mascon modeling is efficient in the recovery of time-variable gravity signals in the Tibetan Plateau.

[1]  Scott B. Luthcke,et al.  Improving global mass flux solutions from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) through forward modeling and continuous time correlation , 2010 .

[2]  J. Kusche,et al.  Regularization of gravity field estimation from satellite gravity gradients , 2002 .

[3]  Jianli Chen,et al.  S2 tide aliasing in GRACE time-variable gravity solutions , 2009 .

[4]  M. Watkins,et al.  The gravity recovery and climate experiment: Mission overview and early results , 2004 .

[5]  A Tikhonov,et al.  Solution of Incorrectly Formulated Problems and the Regularization Method , 1963 .

[6]  F. Bryan,et al.  Time variability of the Earth's gravity field: Hydrological and oceanic effects and their possible detection using GRACE , 1998 .

[7]  Wang Wan-zhao.  Applicability of GLDAS and Climate Change in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and Its Surrounding Arid Area , 2013 .

[8]  W. Sjogren,et al.  A surface‐layer representation of the lunar gravitational field , 1971 .

[9]  Bofeng Li,et al.  Bias-corrected regularized solution to inverse ill-posed models , 2012, Journal of Geodesy.

[10]  Peter Krause,et al.  Hydrological system analysis and modelling of the Nam Co basin in Tibet , 2010 .

[11]  M. Cheng,et al.  Variations in the Earth's oblateness during the past 28 years , 2004 .

[12]  C. Jekeli.  Alternative methods to smooth the Earth's gravity field , 1981 .

[13]  M. Cheng,et al.  Geocenter Variations from Analysis of SLR Data , 2013 .

[14]  Byron D. Tapley,et al.  Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements , 2009 .

[15]  Steven M. Klosko,et al.  Monthly spherical harmonic gravity field solutions determined from GRACE inter‐satellite range‐rate data alone , 2006 .

[16]  Steven M. Klosko,et al.  Global Mass Flux Solutions from GRACE: A Comparison of Parameter Estimation Strategies - Mass Concentrations Versus Stokes Coefficients , 2010 .

[17]  W. Peltier.  GLOBAL GLACIAL ISOSTASY AND THE SURFACE OF THE ICE-AGE EARTH: The ICE-5G (VM2) Model and GRACE , 2004 .

[18]  J. Qiu.  China: The third pole , 2008, Nature.

[19]  Oliver Baur,et al.  GRACE‐derived ice‐mass variations over Greenland by accounting for leakage effects , 2009 .

[20]  Qingbai Wu,et al.  Exchange of groundwater and surface‐water mediated by permafrost response to seasonal and long term air temperature variation , 2011 .

[21]  Yunzhong Shen,et al.  Monthly gravity field models derived from GRACE Level 1B data using a modified short‐arc approach , 2015 .

[22]  Gene H. Golub,et al.  Generalized cross-validation as a method for choosing a good ridge parameter , 1979, Milestones in Matrix Computation.

[23]  V. M. Tiwari,et al.  Dwindling groundwater resources in northern India, from satellite gravity observations , 2009 .

[24]  K. Koch,et al.  Earth's gravity field represented by a simple-layer potential from Doppler tracking of satellites , 1971 .

[25]  Archie Paulson,et al.  FAST TRACK PAPER: Inference of mantle viscosity from GRACE and relative sea level data , 2007 .

[26]  D. Chambers,et al.  Estimating Geocenter Variations from a Combination of GRACE and Ocean Model Output , 2008 .

[27]  Yunzhong Shen,et al.  An improved GRACE monthly gravity field solution by modeling the non-conservative acceleration and attitude observation errors , 2016, Journal of Geodesy.

[28]  Grzegorz Michalak,et al.  GFZ GRACE Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Level-2 Product Release 0005 : revised edition, January 2013 , 2013 .

[29]  Ingo Sasgen,et al.  Wiener optimal filtering of GRACE data , 2006 .

[30]  Bo Huang,et al.  Modeling and analysis of lake water storage changes on the Tibetan Plateau using multi-mission satellite data , 2013 .

[31]  Nitin Arora,et al.  Global Point Mascon Models for Simple, Accurate, and Parallel Geopotential Computation , 2012 .

[32]  F. LeMoine,et al.  Resolving mass flux at high spatial and temporal resolution using GRACE intersatellite measurements , 2005 .

[33]  Foster Morrison,et al.  Algorithms for computing the geopotential using a simple density layer , 1976 .

[34]  Y. Arnaud,et al.  Slight mass gain of Karakoram glaciers in the early twenty-first century , 2012 .

[35]  A. N. Tikhonov,et al.  REGULARIZATION OF INCORRECTLY POSED PROBLEMS , 1963 .

[36]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India , 2009, Nature.

[37]  R. Nerem,et al.  Recent Greenland Ice Mass Loss by Drainage System from Satellite Gravity Observations , 2006, Science.

[38]  J. Ray,et al.  Geocenter motion and its geodetic and geophysical implications , 2012 .

[39]  Nico Sneeuw,et al.  Assessing Greenland ice mass loss by means of point-mass modeling: a viable methodology , 2011 .

[40]  Guodong Cheng,et al.  Changes in frozen ground in the Source Area of the Yellow River on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, China, and their eco-environmental impacts , 2009 .

[41]  W. Tad Pfeffer,et al.  Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise , 2012, Nature.

[42]  Li Hui,et al.  Long-term gravity changes in Chinese mainland from GRACE and ground-based gravity measurements , 2011 .

[43]  K. Koch,et al.  A simple layer model of the geopotential from a combination of satellite and gravity data , 1970 .

[44]  Y. Arnaud,et al.  Region-wide glacier mass balances over the Pamir-Karakoram-Himalaya during 1999–2011 , 2013 .

[45]  H. Xie,et al.  Increased mass over the Tibetan Plateau: From lakes or glaciers? , 2013 .

[46]  Wenke Sun,et al.  Evaluation of glacier changes in high‐mountain Asia based on 10 year GRACE RL05 models , 2013 .

[47]  J. Camp,et al.  Antarctica, Greenland and Gulf of Alaska land-ice evolution from an iterated GRACE global mascon solution , 2013, Journal of Glaciology.

[48]  Hansheng Wang,et al.  Effects of lateral variations in lithospheric thickness and mantle viscosity on glacially induced surface motion on a spherical, self-gravitating Maxwell Earth , 2006 .

[49]  B. Chao,et al.  An effective filtering for GRACE time‐variable gravity: Fan filter , 2009 .

[50]  W. Sjogren,et al.  Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations , 1968, Science.

[51]  Peiliang Xu,et al.  Variance Component Estimation in Linear Inverse Ill-posed Models , 2006 .

[52]  Guodong Cheng,et al.  Permafrost and groundwater on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and in northeast China , 2013, Hydrogeology Journal.

[53]  M. Watkins,et al.  Improved methods for observing Earth's time variable mass distribution with GRACE using spherical cap mascons , 2015 .

[54]  Karl-Rudolf Koch,et al.  Simple Layer Model of the Geopotential in Satellite Geodesy , 2013 .

[55]  W. Peltier,et al.  Ice Age Paleotopography , 1994, Science.

[56]  Zhicai Luo,et al.  Trend of mass change in the Antarctic ice sheet recovered from the GRACE temporal gravity field , 2011, Science China Earth Sciences.

[57]  R. Forsberg,et al.  Mass change of the Greenland ice sheet from a climatic-glaciological model and GRACE , 2004 .

[58]  J. Qin,et al.  Evaluation of AMSR‐E retrievals and GLDAS simulations against observations of a soil moisture network on the central Tibetan Plateau , 2013 .

[59]  B. Bookhagen,et al.  Spatially variable response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change affected by debris cover , 2011 .