Abstract
Variations in continental water storage lead to loading deformation of the crust with typical peak-to-peak variations at very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) sites of 3–15 mm in the vertical component and 1–2 mm in the horizontal component. The hydrology signal at VLBI sites has annual and semi-annual components and clear interannual variations. We have calculated the hydrology loading series using mass loading distributions derived from the global land data assimilation system (GLDAS) hydrology model and alternatively from a global grid of equal-area gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) mascons. In the analysis of the two weekly VLBI 24-h R1 and R4 network sessions from 2003 to 2010 the baseline length repeatabilities are reduced in 79 % (80 %) of baselines when GLDAS (GRACE) loading corrections are applied. Site vertical coordinate repeatabilities are reduced in about 80 % of the sites when either GLDAS or GRACE loading is used. In the horizontal components, reduction occurs in 70–80 % of the sites. Estimates of the annual site vertical amplitudes were reduced for 16 out of 18 sites if either loading series was applied. We estimated loading admittance factors for each site and found that the average admittances were 1.01 \(\pm \) 0.05 for GRACE and 1.39 \(\pm \) 0.07 for GLDAS. The standard deviations of the GRACE admittances and GLDAS admittances were 0.31 and 0.68, respectively. For sites that have been observed in a set of sufficiently temporally dense daily sessions, the average correlation between VLBI vertical monthly averaged series and GLDAS or GRACE loading series was 0.47 and 0.43, respectively.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Boehm J, Werl B, Schuh H (2006) Troposphere mapping functions for GPS and very long baseline interferometry from European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts operational analysis data. J Geophys Res 111:B02406. doi:10.1029/2005JB003629
Boehm J, Heinkelmann R, Mendes Cerveira PJ, Pany A, Schuh H (2009) Atmospheric loading corrections at the observation level. J Geod 83(11):1107–1113. doi:10.1007/s00190-009-0329-y
Davis JL, Elosegui P, Mitrovica JX, Tamisiea ME (2004) Climate-driven deformation of the solid Earth from GRACE and GPS. Geophys Res Lett 31:L24605. doi:10.1029/2004GL021435
Farrell WE (1972) Deformation of the earth by surface loads. Rev Geophys Space Phys 10(3):761–797
Kato H, Rodell M, Beyrich F, Cleugh H, van Gorsel E, Liu H, Meyers TP (2007) Sensitivity of land surface simulations to model physics, land characteristics, and forcings, at four CEOP sites. J Meteorol Soc Jpn 85a:187–204
Liang X, Lettenmaier DP (1994) A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models. J Geophys Res 99(D7):14,415–14,428
Luthcke SB, Sabaka TJ, Loomis BD, Arendt AA, McCarthy JJ, Camp J (2013) Antarctica, Greenland, and Gulf of Alaska land-ice evolution from an iterated GRACE global mascon solution. J Glaciol 59(216). doi:10.3189/2013JoG12J147
Ma C, Sauber JM, Bel LJ, Clark TA, Gordon D, Himwich WE, Ryan JW (1990) Measurement of horizontal motions in Alaska using very long baseline interferometry. J Geophys Res 95(B13):21991–22011
MacMillan DS, Gipson JM (1994) Atmospheric pressure loading parameters from very long baseline interferometry observations. J Geophys Res 99:18,081–18,087
MacMillan D, Boy J-P (2004) Mass loading effects on crustal displacements measured by VLBI. In: IVS 2004 general meeting proceedings, pp 476–480
Milly PCD, Shmakin AB (2002) Global modeling of land water and energy balances. Part I: the land dynamics (LaD) model. J Hydrometeorol 3:283–299
Nothnagel A (2009) Conventions on thermal expansion modelling of radio telescopes for geodetic and astrometric VLBI. J Geod 83(8):787–792. doi:10.1007/s00190-008-0284-z
Petrov L, Boy J-P (2004) Study of the atmospheric pressure loading signal in very long baseline interferometry observations. J Geophys Res 109:B03405. doi:10.1029/2003JB002500
Rodell M et al (2004) The global land data assimilation system. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 85(3):381–394
Rowlands DD, Luthcke SB, Klosko SM, Lemoine FGR, Chin DS, McCarthy JJ, Cox CM, Anderson OB (2005) Resolving mass flux at high spatial and temporal resolution using GRACE intersatellite measurements. Geophys Res Lett 32:L04310. doi:10.1029/2004GL021908
Sabaka TJ, Rowlands DD, Luthcke SB, Boy J-P (2010) Improving global mass flux solutions from Gravity Recovery and CLimate Experiment (GRACE) through forward modeling and continuous time correlation. J Geophys Res 115:B11403. doi:10.1029/2010JB007533
Schuh H, Estermann G, Cretaux JF, Merge-Nguyen M, van Dam T (2003) Investigation of hydrological and atmospheric loading by space geodetic techniquesl. In: International Association of Geodesy Symposia, vol 126. Springer, Berlin
Syed TH, Famigliett JS, Rodell M, Chen J, Wilson C (2008) Analysis of terrestrial water storage changes from GRACE and GLDAS. Water Resour Res 44:W02433. doi:10.1029/2006WR005779
Tesmer V, Steigenberger P, van Dam T, Mayer-Gurr T (2011) Vertical deformations from homogeneously processed GRACE and global GPS long-term series. J Geod 85:291–310. doi:10.1007/s00190-010-0437-8
Tregoning P, Watson C, Ramillien G, McQueen H, Zhang J (2009) Detecting hydrologic deformation using GRACE and GPS. Geophys Res Lett 36:L15401. doi:10.1029/2009GL038718
Tregoning P, Ramillien G, McQueen H, Zwarte D (2009) Glacial isostatic adjustment and nonstationary signals observed by GRACE. J Geophys Res 114:B06406. doi:10.1029/2008JB006161
van Dam T, Blewitt G, Heflin MB (1994) Atmospheric pressure loading effects on Global Positioning System coordinate determinations. J Geophys Res 99:23,939–23,950
van Dam T, Herring TA (1994) Detection of atmospheric pressure loading using very long baseline interferometry measurements. J Geophys Res 99:4505–4518
van Dam T, Wahr J, Milly PCD, Shmakin AB, Blewitt G, Lavallee D, Larson KM (2001) Crustal displacements due to continental water loading. Geophys Res Lett 28(4):651–654
van Dam T, Wahr J, Lavalee D (2007) A comparison of annual vertical crustal displacements from GPS and Gravity Recover and Climate Experiment (GRACE) over Europe. J Geophys Res 112:B03404. doi:10.1029/2006JB004335
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank D. Rowlands for providing advice on using and interpreting NASA GSFC mascon data. We thank M. Rodell for his help in using NASA GSFC GLDAS data. J.-P. Boy helped us check out our loading algorithms. We also acknowledge the valuable suggestions made by the reviewers. We acknowledge the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) for providing the VLBI data that we used in our analysis.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Eriksson, D., MacMillan, D.S. Continental hydrology loading observed by VLBI measurements. J Geod 88, 675–690 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-014-0713-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-014-0713-0