Validation of terrestrial water storage variations as simulated by different global numerical models with GRACE satellite observations

Zhang, Liangjing; Dobslaw, Henryk; Stacke, Tobias; Güntner, Andreas; Dill, Robert; Thomas, Maik

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-821-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-821-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-821-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 2

Research article

|

10 Feb 2017

Research article |

| 10 Feb 2017

Validation of terrestrial water storage variations as simulated by different global numerical models with GRACE satellite observations

Liangjing Zhang, Henryk Dobslaw, Tobias Stacke, Andreas Güntner, Robert Dill, and Maik Thomas

Data sets

GFZ GRACE Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Level-2 Product Release 0005 (ftp://isdcftp.gfz-potsdam.de/grace/) C. Dahle, F. Flechtner, C. Gruber, D. König, R. König, G. Michalak, and K.-H. Neumayer https://doi.org/10.2312/GFZ.b103-1202-25

Globally gridded terrestrial water storage variations from GRACE satellite gravimetry for hydrometeorological applications (http://icgem.gfz-potsdam.de/ICGEM/JSB/G3Browser-st.html) L. Zhang, H. Dobslaw, and M. Thomas https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggw153

Short summary

Global numerical models perform differently, as has been found in some model intercomparison studies, which mainly focused on components like evapotranspiration, soil moisture or runoff. We have applied terrestrial water storage that is estimated from a GRACE-based state-of-art post-processing method to validate four global numerical models and try to identify the advantages and deﬁciencies of a certain model. GRACE-based TWS demonstrates its additional benefits to improve the models in future.