2005 drought and 2009 flood event in the Amazon River basin as measured by GRACE and estimated by climate models
Speaker: Yu-Siang Lin
Abstract
The GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) space mission, launched in March 2002, consists of two low-orbiting spacecrafts linked by an inter-satellite microwave ranging system. GRACE gravity measurements provides a new capability for measuring extreme climate events, such as floods and droughts associated with large?scale terrestrial water storage (TWS) change. Satellite gravity measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provide new quantitative measures of the 2005 extreme drought event in the Amazon river basin, regarded as the worst in over a century, and GRACE gravity measurements show significant TWS increases in the lower Amazon basin in the first half of 2009, clearly associated with the exceptional flood season in that region. GRACE measurements are consistent with accumulated precipitation data from satellite remote sensing and are also supported by in situ water-level data from river gauge stations. This study demonstrates the unique potential of satellite gravity measurements in monitoring large-scale severe drought and flooding events and in evaluating advanced climate and land surface models.
Reference
Chen, J. L., C. R. Wilson, B. D. Tapley, Z. L. Yang, and G. Y. Niu (2009), 2005 drought event in the Amazon River basin as measured by GRACE and estimated by climate models, J. Geophys. Res., 114, B05404, doi:10.1029/2008JB006056.
Chen, J. L., C. R. Wilson, and B. D. Tapley (2010), The 2009 exceptional Amazon flood and interannual terrestrial water storage change observed by GRACE, Water Resour. Res., 46, W12526, doi:10.1029/2010WR009383.