Data Products

Vertical and horizontal deformations of the crust imposed by surface loading of geophysical fluids in atmosphere, oceans and the continental hydrosphere are provided with a spatial resolution of 0.5° and a temporal sampling of down to 3 hours. The elastic deformations are calculated via Green's Functions in two different reference frames (i.e., Center-of-Figure and Center-of-Mass).

Matter and motion terms of effective angular momentum functions due to mass transport processes in atmosphere, oceans, and the continental hydrosphere are provided with a temporal resolution of down to 3 hours. Additionally, short-term forecasts of geophysically induced Earth rotation excitations are calculated for up to 6 days into the future.

Global, periodic mass redistribution patterns for an ensemble of partial tides are provided as sets of Stokes Coefficients. This includes the direct gravitational effect of the ocean water, as well as the load tide effects of the solid earth that it evokes. The underlying global ocean tide solutions are produced by employing the purely hydrodynamic, barotropic ocean model TiME.

An new synthetic model of the time-variable gravity field of the Earth suitable for satellite gravity mission simulation studies is now available. It is given in spherical harmonics up to degree and order 180 for the years 1995 to 2006 with a time sampling of 6 hours, and is designed for the assessment of interdisciplinary research question in a synthetic simulation environment that typically emerge during the specification phase of future satellite missions.

The Gravity Information Service of the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), in collaboration with the Alfred-Wegener-Institut (AWI) and Technische Universität Dresden provides user-friendly ('Level-3') data products derived from the gravimetric Earth observation satellite mission GRACE and GRACE-FO to study mass variations in the Earth system.