- Title
- GRACE follow-on laser ranging interferometer measurements uniquely distinguish short-wavelength gravitational perturbations
- Creator
- Ghobadi-Far, Khosro; Han, Shin-Chan; McCullough, Christopher M.; Wiese, David N.; Yuan, Dah-Ning; Landerer, Felix W.; Sauber, Jeanne; Watkins, Michael M.
- Relation
- Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 47, Issue 16, no. e2020GL089445
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020gl089445
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- We examined the first-ever laser ranging interferometer (LRI) measurements of inter-satellite tracking acquired by Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Follow-On satellites. Through direct along-orbit analysis of instantaneous inter-satellite measurements, we demonstrate the higher sensitivity of LRI (than K-band microwave ranging [KBR]) to anomalies associated with the Earth static gravity field at high spatial resolutions of 100-200 km. We found that LRI captures gravitational signals as small as 0.1 nm/s2 at 490 km altitude, improved by 1 order of magnitude from KBR. This allows LRI to uniquely detect un-/mis-modeled short-wavelength gravitational perturbations. We employed all LRI data in 2019 to validate various state-of-the-art global static gravity field models and show that LRI measurements, even over 1 month, can distinguish subtle differences among the models computed from ~15 years of GRACE KBR and ~4 years of Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) gradiometry data. Ultra-precise LRI measurements will be yet another critical data set for future gravity field model development.
- Subject
- global gravity field models; GRACE; GRACE follow-on; inter-satellite ranging; KBR; LRI; SDG 15; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1436473
- Identifier
- uon:40034
- Identifier
- ISSN:0094-8276
- Language
- eng
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