HR: 09:45h
AN: H31I-08    [Abstracts]
TI: GRACE-Based Estimates of Terrestrial Freshwater Discharge from Basin to Continental Scales
AU: * Syed, T H
EM: tsyed@uci.edu
AF: University of California-Irvine, 1101 Croul Hall, Dept. of Earth System Science, University of California, irvine, CA 92697, United States
AU: Famiglietti, J S
EM: jfamigli@uci.edu
AF: University of California-Irvine, 1101 Croul Hall, Dept. of Earth System Science, University of California, irvine, CA 92697, United States
AU: Chambers, D
EM: chambers@csr.utexas.edu
AF: University of Texas at Austin, Center for Space Research 3925 W. Braker Lane #200, Austin, TX 78759-532, United States
AU: Rodell, M
EM: Matthew.Rodell@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Hydrological Sciences Branch Code 614.3 NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AB: Consequences of a rapidly changing climate have become a major concern for scientists and policymakers alike. It has become increasingly clear that pragmatic, near real-time information on freshwater water flux, at varied spatial scales, over the globe is of paramount importance in assessing changes in the global water cycle. Current capabilities for making such assessments are stalled by various issues. Large scale flow diversification in the deltaic regions, floodplain inundation, direct groundwater flows, drainage into wetlands are some of the pathways of water outflow that are not registered by the conventional streamgauges. Thus, in-channel streamflow, often used as a surrogate of net basin outflow, may in reality represent only a part of the net freshwater discharge and are therefore incomplete for proper budget analysis. Here we present large-scale estimates of freshwater discharge using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)-derived monthly terrestrial water storage changes in a combined land-atmosphere water mass balance. The computed estimates of freshwater discharge are subsequently analyzed in the context of global climate and compared with previously published estimates. This method has been previously tested on the Amazon, Mississippi and several large Arctic river basins. Results and comparisons to observations indicate that the method has important potential for global-scale discharge monitoring of combined surface water and submarine groundwater discharge at near- real time.
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1836 Hydrological cycles and budgets (1218, 1655)
DE: 1855 Remote sensing (1640)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting