Progress and prospect of GRACE Mascon product and its application

Abstract

The success of the launch of GRACE in 2002 has greatly promoted the development of Earth Science, especially in many fields such as global sea level change, polar ice sheet and Alpine glacier melting, hydrology and solid earth. However, GRACE observation data are mainly given in the form of spherical harmonic coefficients, so users need to carry out a series of pre-processing to get specific physical quantities. In order to overcome this difficulty and enhance the spatial resolution, relevant organizations have released a new generation of GRACE products, named Mascon products. The original intention of this product is to be convenient for people who are not majoring in Geodesy and Geophysics, such as hydrologists and oceanographers, and it does not need any post-processing process, so it is more convenient to use. Although Mascon product gives a high spatial resolution (such as 1°), scientists are very concerned about the actual resolution and the application scope of the product. At present, scientists have systematically evaluated and applied the applicability of this product in different watershed scales and different application fields. In this paper, we introduce the basic principles and methods of Mascon products, compares the differences between the three Mascon products, and combs the applicability of the products and spherical harmonic coefficient products in the application of some specific physical problems as well as the problems that should be paid attention to, so as to provide scientific basis and use reference for the majority of scientific researchers.

Keywords

• gravity satellites
• grace
• mascon
• terrestrial water storage (tws)
• seismic
• climate change