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Hydrological processes cause variations in gravitational potential and surface deformations, both of which are de- tectable using space geodetic techniques. We computed elas- tic deformation using continental water load estimates de- rived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and compared to 3D deformation estimated from GPS ob- servations. The agreement is very good in areas where large hydrologic signals occur over broad spatial scales, with cor- relation in horizontal components as high as 0.9. Agreement is also observed at smaller scales, including across Europe. This suggests that: a) both techniques are perhaps more accurate than previously thought and b) a large percent- age of the non-linear variations seen in our GPS time series are most likely related to geophysical processes rather than analysis error. Low correlation at some sites suggests that local processes or site specific analysis errors dominate the GPS deformation estimates rather than the broad-scale hy- drologic signals detected by GRACE.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	hydrologic deformation, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), GPS deformation, surface mass
Research Division:	Earth Sciences
Research Group:	Geophysics
Research Field:	Geodesy
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences
UTAS Author:	Watson, C (Dr Christopher Watson)
ID Code:	57203
Year Published:	2009
Web of Science® Times Cited:	146
Deposited By:	Geography and Environmental Studies
Deposited On:	2009-06-24
Last Modified:	2013-02-26
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