MULTI-ANNUAL MASS VARIATIONS FROM GRACE MONTHLY SOLUTIONS - PRELIMINARY RESULTS

The GRACE satellites have provided gravity field solutions with approximately monthly resolution since April 2002. The monthly solutions enable investigations of the annual, semiannual and secular mass variations, which mainly occur in a thin layer of the Earth's surface. By the end of the GRACE science mission in 2017, the time span has increased to 15 years, making the possibility of determining longer-period variations feasible. First attempts to determine multi-annual variations, i.e. periods of some years but less than 10, are presented in this study. A combination of 3 different PSD estimation methods has been used for identifying the regions of multi-annual mass variations. As a result, 8 different areas have been found with significant multi-annual mass variations. The source of multi-annual mass variations in most detected regions can be identified as related to the ENSO cycle.