Sandeep N Kundu
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a satellite based observation of the Earth’s gravitational field through time. Earth’s gravitational field has long been studied to infer the densities of underlying rocks for geological characterization at various scales. Convention gravity measurements were done using spring gravimeters on ground. However continuous observations of temporal variations in the Earth’s gravity field have become available at an unprecedented resolution of a few hundreds of kilometres through satellite based sensors. With the launch of GRACE in 2002, the study of the exchange of mass both within the Earth and at its surface in the short temporal interval has become possible. This has huge implications in studying the impacts of earth’s surface processes involving the interaction of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and biosphere. GRACE gravity, therefore, has gained relevance for Earth scientists as an important tool to study the complex dynamics of the Earth system and climate change. The current article researches on the principles behind grave gravity variations and its applications to infer climate change and proposes the advances required to overcome the limitations of GRACE for climate change forecasting.
