HR: 10:20h
AN: G22A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment: Status and Future Plans
AU: * Tapley, B D
EM: tapley@csr.utexas.edu
AF: University of Texas Center for Space Research, 3925 West Braker Lane, Austin, TX 78759 United States
AU: Bettadpur, S
EM: bettadpur @csr.utexas.edu
AF: University of Texas Center for Space Research, 3925 West Braker Lane, Austin, TX 78759 United States
AB: Mass transport between the earth's atmosphere, oceans and solid earth is a critical component of global climate change processes. Mass change is an important component of the signals associated with global sea level and polar ice mass change, depletion and recharge of continental aquifers, and change in the deep ocean currents. This mass exchange has a gravitational signal, which can be monitored as an indication of the process. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a dedicated satellite mission whose objective is to map the global gravity field with unprecedented accuracy over a spatial range from 400 km to 40,000 km every thirty days. The first general release of the GRACE data has already had a significant impact in a number of earth system science studies. This presentation will summarize the mission status, the satellite and instrument performance, and current results. Extensive analysis of the data over the last year has defined a set of improvements for the data processing methodology. The plans for implementing these improvements and reprocessing the data will be described, along with preliminary results indicating the projected impact on future GRACE science. Early results show substantial improvement in the knowledge of the gravity field and its temporal variability.
DE: 1214 Geopotential theory and determination (0903)
DE: 1243 Space geodetic surveys
DE: 1640 Remote sensing (1855)
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005