DOI:   

1. https://doi.org/10.5067/GFLND-3AJ06
2. https://doi.org/10.5067/GFOCN-3AJ06
3. https://doi.org/10.5067/GFLND-3AC06
4. https://doi.org/10.5067/GFOCN-3AC06
5. https://doi.org/10.5067/GFLND-3AG06
6. https://doi.org/10.5067/GFOCN-3AG06

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) project and PO.DAAC are pleased to announce the public release of the Tellus JPL/GFZ/CSR GRACE-FO Level 3 Monthly Ocean/Land Water-Equivalent-Thickness Surface-Mass Anomaly Release 6.0 (RL06) datasets.

The GRACE-FO mission, a joint partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), launched on 22 May 2018. It uses twin satellites to accurately map variations in the Earth's gravity field and surface mass distribution. GRACE-FO is designed as a successor to the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission. Detailed information regarding the GRACE-FO mission is available from the project GRACE-FO website and also the PO.DAAC GRACE-FO mission webpage.

The GRACE-FO Level 3 RL06 includes Monthly Ocean/Land Water-Equivalent-Thickness Surface-Mass Anomaly datasets from three data centers (JPL, GFZ, and CSR), for a total of six datasets. Over land, the mass anomalies represent the total terrestrial water storage variations (including soil moisture, snow, groundwater, surface water, and land ice). Over the oceans, the mass anomalies represent ocean bottom pressure changes (including global mass-related sea level variations and dynamic ocean mass redistribution). Each dataset is formatted in netCDF, ASCII (YAML encoded), and GeoTIFF. In this release, 11 months of ocean and land datasets from JPL, GFZ, and CSR are included, covering the time period from June 2018 to June 2019. These datasets will be appended with new monthly fields with a  maximum sixty day latency.

The datasets are described and discoverable via the PO.DAAC dataset information pages.  The dataset information pages also provide access to the technical documentation, GRACE-FO Level-3 User Handbook, and guidance on how to cite the data.

Citation:  Landerer F.W. and S. C. Swenson, 2012, Accuracy of scaled GRACE terrestrial water storage estimates. Water Resources Research, Vol 48, W04531, 11 PP, doi:10.1029/2011WR011453.

Comments/Questions? Please contact podaac@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov or visit the PO.DAAC Forum.