Articles | Volume 30, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4969-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4969-2026
Research article
 | 
07 Aug 2026
Research article |  | 07 Aug 2026

Beyond GRACE: Evaluating the benefits of NGGM and MAGIC for precipitation estimation over Europe

Muhammad Usman Liaqat, Stefania Camici, Francesco Leopardi, Jaime Gaona, and Luca Brocca

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Impact of the NGGM and MAGIC future satellite gravity missions for scientific applications and operational services
Julia Pfeffer, Benoît Meyssignac, Rory Bingham, Alejandro Blazquez, Marie Bouih, Carla Braitenberg, Luca Brocca, Henryk Dobslaw, Ramiro Ferrari, Ehsan Forootan, Helena Gerdener, Muhammad Tahir Javed, Laura Jensen, Volker Klemann, Anna Kremer, Jürgen Kusche, Gilles Larnicol, Muhammad Usman Liaqat, Francesco Leopardi, Elisavet-Maria Mamagiannou, Gerardo Maurizio, Roland Pail, Isabelle Panet, Thomas Papanikolaou, Peyman Saemian, Ingo Sasgen, Maike Schumacher, Marius Schlaak, Linus Shihora, Alireza Sobouti, Nico Sneeuw, Mohammad Javad Tourian, Dimitrios Tsoulis, Georgios Vergos, Bert Wouters, Fan Yang, and Ilias Daras
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4642,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4642, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth Observation (EO).
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Cited articles

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Ansari, R., Liaqat, M. U., and Grossi, G.: Evaluation of gridded datasets for terrestrial water budget assessment in the Upper Jhelum River Basin-South Asia, J. Hydrol.- Reg. Stud., 613, 128294, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2024.102114, 2022. 
Beck, H. E., McVicar, T. R., Vergopolan, N., Berg, A., Lutsko, N. J., Dufour, A., Zeng, Z., Jiang, X., Van Dijk, A. I., and Miralles, D. G.: High-resolution (1 km) Köppen-Geiger maps for 1901–2099 based on constrained CMIP6 projections, Sci. Data, 10, 724, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02549-6, 2023. 
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Brocca, L., Ciabatta, L., Massari, C., Moramarco, T., Hahn, S., Hasenauer, S., Kidd, R., Dorigo, W., Wagner, W., and Levizzani, V.: Soil as a natural rain gauge: Estimating global rainfall from satellite soil moisture data, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 119, 5128–5141, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021489, 2014. 
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Short summary
Tracking land water storage helps examine extreme events and manage water resources. GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) missions observe changes, but coarse resolution in space and time challenges effective management. New gravity mission called MAGIC (Mass Change And Geosciences International Constellation) can offers better accuracy. This study tested MAGIC’s potential to estimate precipitation using the SM2RAIN approach. Results show SM2RAIN works well with frequent, accurate data but deteriorates with noisy/sparse data, emphasizing the need for precise gravity missions.
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