Optimal Scaling of Filtered GRACE dS/dt Anomalies over Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins, California

Abstract:

Signals from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiments (GRACE) twin satellites mission mapping the time invariant earth’s gravity field are degraded due to measurement and leakage errors. Dampening of these errors using different filters results in a modification of the true geophysical signals. Therefore, use of a scale factor is suggested to recover the modified signals. For basin averaged dS/dt anomalies computed from data available at University of Colorado GRACE data analysis website - http://geoid.colorado.edu/grace/, optimal time invariant and time variant scale factors for Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins, California, are derived using observed precipitation (P), runoff (Q) and evapotranspiration (ET). Using the derived optimal scaling factor for GRACE data filtered using a 300 km- wide gaussian filter resulted in scaled GRACE dS/dt anomalies that match better with observed dS/dt anomalies (P-ET-Q) as compared to the GRACE dS/dt anomalies computed from scaled GRACE product at University of Colorado GRACE data analysis website. This paper will present the procedure, the optimal values, and the statistical analysis of the results.