Earth's surface fluid variations and deformations from GPS and GRACE in global warming

TL;DR

This paper utilizes GPS and GRACE satellite data to analyze Earth's surface fluid variations and deformations caused by global warming, providing insights into water mass transfer and its effects on Earth system dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis combining GPS and GRACE data to quantify surface fluid variations and deformations related to climate change.

Findings

Quantified surface fluid variations from space-based measurements.

Analyzed fluid loading deformation and its interaction with Earth rotation.

Provided new insights into Earth's response to climate-induced water mass changes.

Abstract

Global warming is affecting our Earth's environment. For example, sea level is rising with thermal expansion of water and fresh water input from the melting of continental ice sheets due to human-induced global warming. However, observing and modeling Earth's surface change has larger uncertainties in the changing rate and the scale and distribution of impacts due to the lack of direct measurements. Nowadays, the Earth observation from space provides a unique opportunity to monitor surface mass transfer and deformations related to climate change, particularly the global positioning system (GPS) and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) with capability of estimating global land and ocean water mass. In this paper, the Earth's surface fluid variations and deformations are derived and analyzed from global GPS and GRACE measurements. The fluids loading deformation and its interaction with Earth system, e.g., Earth Rotation, are further presented and discussed.