JPL GRACE and GRACE-FO Mascon Ocean, Ice, and Hydrology Equivalent Water Height Coastal Resolution Improvement (CRI) Filtered Release 06.3 Version 04

Thus, these Mascon grids do not need to be de-correlated or smoothed, like traditional spherical harmonic gravity solutions. The complete Mascon solution consists of 4,551 independent estimates of surface mass change that have been derived using an equal-area 3-degree grid of individual mascons. A subset of these individual mascons span coastlines, and contain mixed land and ocean mass change signals.

In a post-processing step, the CRI filter is applied to those mixed land/ocean Mascons to separate land and ocean mass. The land mask used to perform this separation is provided in the same directory as this dataset, as are uncertainty values, and the gridded mascon-ID number to enable further analysis. Since the individual mascons act as an inherent smoother on the gravity field, a set of optional gain factors (or scale factors) is provided within the netCDF and can be applied to the solution to study mass change signals at sub-mascon resolution (e.g. for continental hydrology applications).

For use-case examples and further background on the gain factors, please see Wiese, Landerer & Watkins, 2016, doi.org/10.1002/2016WR019344. This RL06.3Mv04 is an updated version of the previous Tellus JPL Mascon RL06.1Mv03 (DOI, 10.5067/TEMSC-3JC63). For a detailed description on the Mascon solution, including the mathematical derivation, implementation of geophysical constraints, and solution validation, please see Watkins et al., 2015, doi: 10.1002/2014JB011547.

For a detailed description of the CRI filter implementation, please see Wiese et al., 2016, doi:10.1002/2016WR019344.