Description: Since 2002, time-lapse satellite gravimetry missions have successfully observed global time-variable mass transport. The GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment; Tapley et al., 2004, 2019) mission and its successor, GRACE-FO (GRACE-Follow On; Chen et al., 2022; Landerer et al., 2020), have almost continuously delivered monthly observations of the gravity field for more than two decades. As GRACE-FO approaches the end of its lifetime, new satellite gravity missions are planned for launch. For the continuation of the record, GRACE-C (GRACE-Continuity by NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR with support from GFZ, BMWK, BMFB, HGF and MPG ) is planned to be launched in 2028 in a near-polar orbit at an altitude of ~500 km. GRACE-C will be followed by the Next Generation Gravity Mission (NGGM) launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2032 in an inclined orbit of 65–70 degrees at an altitude of ~400 km. In their overlapping period, these two satellite pairs form the Mass-change And Geoscience International Constellation (MAGIC). In the frame of the ESA SING (Studying the Impact of the NGGM and MAGIC Gravity missions) project (SING project website, 2026), extensive simulations have been performed to evaluate the added value of extended gravity field measurements in time with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution, and, reduced latency in data availability. Synthetic observations of the gravity field have been generated at Levels 2 and 3 for GRACE-C-like, NGGM and MAGIC satellite configurations using a closed-loop numerical simulator integrating instrument noise, background model errors, and realistic satellite orbits. The simulations utilize target Earth signals from the ESA Earth System Model ESM 2.0 (Dobslaw et al., 2015), including hydrology, ice, and solid Earth components. Two parameterisation strategies used in this study yield simulated gravity solutions of mean fields at 5-day and 30-day resolutions. The other two strategies result in direct estimation of the trend and annual signal (trendannual) and direct estimation of the long-term trend (trendonly). For each parameterisation strategy, the data products are separated into three levels (L2, L2P, and L3). L2 are Stokes coefficients of the simulated Earth’s potential provided separately for each mission scenario and expressed in the spherical harmonic basis in ICGEM format. L2p and L3 synthetic data represent simulated surface mass anomalies provided separately for each mission scenario and expressed in equivalent water heights over regular 1°*1° grids in NetCDF format. The L3 data were corrected for Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), while the L2p data were not. . The full description of the data and methods is provided in the data description publication (Schlaak et al. in prep.), and the file structure of this data set is fully described in the file inventory. The resolution of all data products (L2a, L2b, L2P, L3) for each mission scenario (GRACE-C-like, NGGM, MAGIC) depends on the simulation type described in Schlaak et al. (in prep.). For 5-daily solutions, the spatial resolution corresponds to ca. 285 km (d/o 70). For monthly solutions, the temporal resolution is 30 days, with a spatial resolution of ca. 166 km (d/o 120). Trend and annual signals (trend-and-annual solutions) have been estimated simultaneously over a period of 12 years (with 1-year increments) and a spatial resolution of ca. 150 km (d/o 130). For trend-only solutions, the spatial resolution is increased to 125 km, with trend estimates over 5 and 12 years. Additionally, empirical Variance-Covariance Matrices (VCMs) are provided for L2a and L3b data for the 5-daily and monthly simulation types, computed from Monte Carlo simulations (Schlaak et al., in prep.).
Global identifier:
Doi(
"10.5880/fidgeo.2026.049",
)
Tags: Lärmpegel ? Satellit ? Messdaten ? Studie ? Daten ? Hydrologie ? Wasserstand ? MAGIC satellite configuration ? NGGM satellite configuration ? Platforms > Space-based Platforms > Earth Observation Satellites > GRACE ? Platforms > Space-based Platforms > Earth Observation Satellites > GRACE-FO ? Science Keywords > EARTH SCIENCE > SOLID EARTH > GRAVITY/GRAVITATIONAL FIELD ? time variable mass transport ?
License: Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0
Language: Englisch/English
Issued: 2026-01-01
Last harvest: 30.06.2026 23:54
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