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Using Enhanced Grace Water Storage Data to Improve Drought Detection by the U.S. and North American Drought MonitorsNASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites measure time variations of the Earth's gravity field enabling reliable detection of spatio-temporal variations in total terrestrial water storage (TWS), including groundwater. The U.S. and North American Drought Monitors rely heavily on precipitation indices and do not currently incorporate systematic observations of deep soil moisture and groundwater storage conditions. Thus GRACE has great potential to improve the Drought Monitors by filling this observational gap. GRACE TWS data were assimilating into the Catchment Land Surface Model using an ensemble Kalman smoother enabling spatial and temporal downscaling and vertical decomposition into soil moisture and groundwater components. The Drought Monitors combine several short- and long-term drought indicators expressed in percentiles as a reference to their historical frequency of occurrence. To be consistent, we generated a climatology of estimated soil moisture and ground water based on a 60-year Catchment model simulation, which was used to convert seven years of GRACE assimilated fields into drought indicator percentiles. At this stage we provide a preliminary evaluation of the GRACE assimilated moisture and indicator fields.
Document ID
20110015257
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Houborg, Rasmus
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Rodell, Matthew
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Lawrimore, Jay
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Asheville, NC, United States)
Li, Bailing
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Reichle, Rolf
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Heim, Richard
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Asheville, NC, United States)
Rosencrans, Matthew
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Asheville, NC, United States)
Tinker, Rich
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Asheville, NC, United States)
Famiglietti, James S.
(California Univ. Irvine, CA, United States)
Svoboda, Mark
(Nebraska Univ. Lincoln, NE, United States)
Wardlow, Brian
(Nebraska Univ. Lincoln, NE, United States)
Zaitchik, Benjamin F.
(Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
July 25, 2011
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Report/Patent Number
GSFC.CPR.4696.2011
Meeting Information
Meeting: 2010 30th IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium
Location: Honolulu, HI
Country: United States
Start Date: July 25, 2010
End Date: July 30, 2010
Sponsors: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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