Inversion of GRACE Range-Rate Data into Equal Area Mass Grids using Tikhonov Regularization

Himanshu Save and Srinivas V Bettadpur, The University of Texas at Austin, Center for Space Research, Austin, TX, United States
Abstract:
This paper investigates the inversion of the GRACE range-rate information into equal area mass grids while using Tikhonov regularization to stabilize the ill-posed inversion problem. This study attempts to gain insights into spatial and temporal characteristics of the signal and noise for different basis functions such as spherical harmonics and mass grids. We discuss methods to produce mass anomaly grids that have no stripe features while satisfying the necessary condition of capturing all observed signal within the GRACE noise level. These solutions will be validated against multiple models and in-situ datasets.