Global Patterns of Terrestrial Water Storage Anomalies from Year 2003 to 2015

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin satellites measure the earth gravity field and provide estimates of the Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) change. Here, we use the GRACE-derived monthly gridded TWS anomaly (TWSa) data from Year 2003 to 2015 processed by three centers, namely the Center for Space Research (CSR), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the GeoForschungZentrum (GFZ). For the research, our main objective is to understand the overall trend, climatology, and spatial patterns of global TWSa fields within the thirteen years. We started with the time domain by evaluating temporal series, seasonality, and related statistical characteristics of the global TWSa fields. Then, we incorporated the space domain by creating a 1°1° global map of total TWS variations from 2003 to 2015 to identify spatial “hotspots”. Through temporal evolutions of TWSa and its statistics, we identified an overall drying trend over the global terrestrial. In the meanwhile, the water loss was accompanied by a greater occurrence of extremely hydrological events and more uneven distribution of water resources. In addition, the climatology of TWSa and its positive and negative components exhibit distinctive features within an annual cycle. We will also present the map of TWSa variations and hotspots identified by criteria. Altogether, our research provides insights into the spatial-temporal features of the global water cycle.