Documents archived by NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) provide technical information about the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). These include handbooks, processing documents, release notes, fact sheets, and technical notes.
General
| Document Title | Revision | Author | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRACE Product Specification Document GRACE 327-720 | 4.6 | S. Bettadpur | May 29, 2012 | Provides a detailed description of data products at all levels for the GRACE mission. |
Level 1B
| Document Title | Revision | Author | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRACE Level 1B Data Product User Handbook JPL D-22027 GRACE 327-733 | 1.3 | K. Case, G. Kruizinga, and S.C. Wu | March 24, 2010 | Provides a comprehensive description of the content and format of the Level 1B data. |
| AOD1B Product Description Document GRACE 327-750 | 6.1 | Henryk Dobslaw, Inga Bergmann-Wolf, Robert Dill, Lea Poropat, Frank Flechtner | October 19, 2017 | Describes the atmospheric and ocean de-aliasing product (AOD1B) and the barotropic ocean model output (OCN1B). |
| Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document for GRACE Level 1B Data Processing GRACE 327-741 | 1.2 | S.C. Wu, G. Kruizinga, W. Bertiger | May 9, 2006 | Describes the algorithms producing the main quantities on the Level 1B data. |
Level 2
| Document Title | Revision | Author | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GFZ Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE 327-743 | 0.0 | C. Dahle, et al. | Aug. 3, 2018 | Describes the processing standards, models, and parameters adopted for the Level-2 Product Release 06 generated at GFZ. |
| CSR Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE 327-742 | 5.0 | S. Bettadpur | May 1, 2018 | Describes the processing standards, models, and parameters adopted for the Level-2 Product Release 06 generated at CSR. |
| JPL Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE 327-744 | 6.0 | Dah-Ning Yuan | June 1, 2018 | Describes the processing standards, models, and parameters adopted for the Level-2 Product Release 06 generated at JPL. |
| Level-2 Gravity Field Product User Handbook GRACE 327-734 | 4.0 | S. Bettadpur | April 25, 2018 | Provides a description of the Earth gravity field estimates provided by the Level 2 processing. |
Ancillary
| Document Title | Author | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| An Analysis of Gravity-Field Estimation Based on Inter-satellite Dual One-Way Biased Ranging JPL Publication 98-15 | J.B. Thomas | May 1999 | Describes a dual one-way approach for extracting "high-rate" k-band intersateliite biased range measurements. |
| Optimal combination of quaternions from multiple star cameras JPL Internal Memorandum | L.J. Romans | May 2003 | Describes a procedure for optimally combining quaternions measured simultaneously from different aligned star cameras. |
L1 and L2 Release Notes
| Document Title | Author | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Notes for CSR RL06 GRACE L2 products | S. Bettadpur | Gives additional information on CSR RL06 GRACE L2 products (not contained in CSR RL05 processing standards document). | |
| Release Notes for GFZ RL06 GRACE L2 products | C. Dahle | Gives additional information on GFZ RL06 GRACE L2 products (not contained in GFZ RL05 processing standards document). | |
| Release Notes for JPL RL06 GRACE L2 products | Christopher M. McCullough, David N. Wiese, & Dah-Ning Yuan | Gives additional information on JPL RL06 GRACE L2 products (not contained in JPL RL05 processing standards document). |
Technical Notes
| Document Title | Author | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| GRACE Technical Note #01: Sequence of Events (SOE) File | Updated Daily | Provides a record of changes of the state of a specific satellite sensor or satellite event, which may alter the processing parameters used for the L1B processing. This file is updated on a daily basis. | |
| GRACE Technical Note #02: ACC blases | S. Bettadpur | June 17, 2009 | Provides recommendations for a-priori bias & scale parameters for Level 1B ACC data. |
| GRACE Technical Note #03: Sequence of Events (SOE) format description | G. Kruizinga | October 20, 2004 | Provides a detailed description and format information on how the SOE file is organized. |
| GRACE Technical Note #04: Usage guidelines for GFZ RL03 and JPL RL02 GRACE gravity fields & atmosphere/ocean background models | S. Bettadpur, F. Flechtner, R. Schmidt | May 9, 2006 | Provides detailed guidelines for usage on GFZ RL03 and JPL RL02 GRACE models. |
| GRACE Technical Note #06: Impact of change in AOD1B on RL04 monthly GSM | S. Bettadpur | Feburary 21, 2008 | Discusses the impact on GRACE level 2 products of the reprocessing of June 2006 through September 2007 GRACE AOD1B data. It is recommended that the following products be replaced with the re-processed ones: AOD1B, GSM-2, GAC-2, and GAD-2. |
| GRACE Technical Note #11E: Monthly estimates of C20 and C30 from 6/7 satellites based on GRACE RL06 models | M. Cheng and J. Ries | January 25, 2023 | Use these estimates to replace the C20 values (and C30 values starting March 2012) from the GSM files of the GRACE(-FO) RL06.X products only. These estimates are not intended to be used with the GRACE RL05 or earlier products. |
| GRACE Technical Note #12: Convert Global Mean OBP -> Global Mean Ocean Mass | This calculation uses AOD1B 'GAC' fields, and integrates over the ocean-area only; due to the definition of 'GAC' (see AOD1B handbook for further details), the resulting mean value effectively represents 'mean atmospheric mass over the global ocean' for each time step. | ||
| GRACE Technical Note #13a: degree-1 (geocenter) gravity coefficients from CSR RL06.2 | This file contains monthly estimates of degree-1 gravity coefficients for the GRACE Release-06.2 data, based on ocean and atmospheric models and GRACE coefficients for degrees 2 and higher. | ||
| GRACE Technical Note #13b: degree-1 (geocenter) gravity coefficients from GFZ RL06.1 | This file contains monthly estimates of degree-1 gravity coefficients for the GRACE Release-06.1 data, based on ocean and atmospheric models and GRACE coefficients for degrees 2 and higher. | ||
| GRACE Technical Note #13c: degree-1 (geocenter) gravity coefficients from JPL RL06.1 | This file contains monthly estimates of degree-1 gravity coefficients for the GRACE Release-06.1 data, based on ocean and atmospheric models and GRACE coefficients for degrees 2 and higher. | ||
| GRACE Technical Note #14: NASA GSFC SLR C20 and C30 solutions | B.D. Loomis and K.E. Rachlin | This file contains SLR-derived C20 and C30 values for replacing GRACE/GRACE-FO GSM Values prior to MJD 56006 use 5 satellites: LAGEOS-1/2, Stella, Starlette, AJISAI Values beginning on MJD 56006 use 7 atellites: LARES and Larets added C30 values are not provided prior to MJD 56006 Estimated parameters for both 5 and 7-satellite configurations: 5x5+C61,S61 | |
| Missing and and Unused Days Table | CSV table of missing days for GRACE and GRACE-FO processing. Includes monthly information on missing days as well as unused days by each of the processing centers. |