GRACE gravitational measurements of tsunamis after the 2004, 2010, and 2011 great earthquakes

Khosro Ghobadi-Far; Shin Chan Han; Sébastien Allgeyer; Paul Tregoning; Jeanne Sauber; Saniya Behzadpour; Torsten Mayer-Gürr; Nico Sneeuw; Emile Okal

doi:10.1007/s00190-020-01395-3

GRACE gravitational measurements of tsunamis after the 2004, 2010, and 2011 great earthquakes

Khosro Ghobadi-Far^*, Shin Chan Han, Sébastien Allgeyer, Paul Tregoning, Jeanne Sauber, Saniya Behzadpour, Torsten Mayer-Gürr, Nico Sneeuw, Emile Okal

^*Corresponding author for this work

Earth and Planetary Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

The 2004 Sumatra, 2010 Maule, and 2011 Tohoku great earthquakes triggered tsunamis as large as a few decimeters over a few 100 km in the open ocean. The transient ocean mass redistribution propagating as tsunamis changed the Earth’s gravity field enough to perturb the GRACE satellites’ orbits at ~ 500 km above the surface. The on-board microwave ranging system detected inter-satellite acceleration anomalies of up to 1.0–4.0 nm/s². There is good agreement between GRACE measurements and tsunami models for the three events. Complementarily to buoys, ocean bottom pressure sounders, and satellite altimeters, GRACE is sensitive to the long-wavelength spatial scale of tsunamis and provides an independent source of information for assessing alternate early earthquake and tsunami models. Our study demonstrates an innovative way of applying GRACE and GRACE Follow-On data to detect transient geophysical mass changes which cannot be observed by the conventional monthly Level-2 and mascon solutions.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	65
Journal	Journal of Geodesy
Volume	94
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-020-01395-3
State	Published - Jul 1 2020

Funding

This work was funded by The University of Newcastle to support NASA’s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On projects as an international science team member to the missions and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100224). Science team funding was provided by NASA (GRACERFO19-0010) to Jeanne Sauber. Tsunami simulations were undertaken with the assistance of the resources and services from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Project tz21, which is supported by the Australian Government. This work was funded by The University of Newcastle to support NASA’s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On projects as an international science team member to the missions and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100224). Science team funding was provided by NASA (GRACERFO19-0010) to Jeanne Sauber. Tsunami simulations were undertaken with the assistance of the resources and services from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Project tz21, which is supported by the Australian Government.

Keywords

Earthquake
GRACE
GRACE Follow-On
LOS gravity difference
Transient signals
Tsunami

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geophysics
Geochemistry and Petrology
Computers in Earth Sciences

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1007/s00190-020-01395-3

Cite this

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title = "GRACE gravitational measurements of tsunamis after the 2004, 2010, and 2011 great earthquakes",

abstract = "The 2004 Sumatra, 2010 Maule, and 2011 Tohoku great earthquakes triggered tsunamis as large as a few decimeters over a few 100 km in the open ocean. The transient ocean mass redistribution propagating as tsunamis changed the Earth{\textquoteright}s gravity field enough to perturb the GRACE satellites{\textquoteright} orbits at ~ 500 km above the surface. The on-board microwave ranging system detected inter-satellite acceleration anomalies of up to 1.0–4.0 nm/s2. There is good agreement between GRACE measurements and tsunami models for the three events. Complementarily to buoys, ocean bottom pressure sounders, and satellite altimeters, GRACE is sensitive to the long-wavelength spatial scale of tsunamis and provides an independent source of information for assessing alternate early earthquake and tsunami models. Our study demonstrates an innovative way of applying GRACE and GRACE Follow-On data to detect transient geophysical mass changes which cannot be observed by the conventional monthly Level-2 and mascon solutions.",

keywords = "Earthquake, GRACE, GRACE Follow-On, LOS gravity difference, Transient signals, Tsunami",

author = "Khosro Ghobadi-Far and Han, {Shin Chan} and S{\'e}bastien Allgeyer and Paul Tregoning and Jeanne Sauber and Saniya Behzadpour and Torsten Mayer-G{\"u}rr and Nico Sneeuw and Emile Okal",

note = "Funding Information: This work was funded by The University of Newcastle to support NASA{\textquoteright}s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On projects as an international science team member to the missions and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100224). Science team funding was provided by NASA (GRACERFO19-0010) to Jeanne Sauber. Tsunami simulations were undertaken with the assistance of the resources and services from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Project tz21, which is supported by the Australian Government. Funding Information: This work was funded by The University of Newcastle to support NASA{\textquoteright}s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On projects as an international science team member to the missions and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100224). Science team funding was provided by NASA (GRACERFO19-0010) to Jeanne Sauber. Tsunami simulations were undertaken with the assistance of the resources and services from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Project tz21, which is supported by the Australian Government. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, The Author(s).",

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AU - Sauber, Jeanne

AU - Behzadpour, Saniya

AU - Mayer-Gürr, Torsten

AU - Sneeuw, Nico

AU - Okal, Emile

N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by The University of Newcastle to support NASA’s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On projects as an international science team member to the missions and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100224). Science team funding was provided by NASA (GRACERFO19-0010) to Jeanne Sauber. Tsunami simulations were undertaken with the assistance of the resources and services from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Project tz21, which is supported by the Australian Government. Funding Information: This work was funded by The University of Newcastle to support NASA’s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On projects as an international science team member to the missions and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100224). Science team funding was provided by NASA (GRACERFO19-0010) to Jeanne Sauber. Tsunami simulations were undertaken with the assistance of the resources and services from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Project tz21, which is supported by the Australian Government. Publisher Copyright: © 2020, The Author(s).

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N2 - The 2004 Sumatra, 2010 Maule, and 2011 Tohoku great earthquakes triggered tsunamis as large as a few decimeters over a few 100 km in the open ocean. The transient ocean mass redistribution propagating as tsunamis changed the Earth’s gravity field enough to perturb the GRACE satellites’ orbits at ~ 500 km above the surface. The on-board microwave ranging system detected inter-satellite acceleration anomalies of up to 1.0–4.0 nm/s2. There is good agreement between GRACE measurements and tsunami models for the three events. Complementarily to buoys, ocean bottom pressure sounders, and satellite altimeters, GRACE is sensitive to the long-wavelength spatial scale of tsunamis and provides an independent source of information for assessing alternate early earthquake and tsunami models. Our study demonstrates an innovative way of applying GRACE and GRACE Follow-On data to detect transient geophysical mass changes which cannot be observed by the conventional monthly Level-2 and mascon solutions.

AB - The 2004 Sumatra, 2010 Maule, and 2011 Tohoku great earthquakes triggered tsunamis as large as a few decimeters over a few 100 km in the open ocean. The transient ocean mass redistribution propagating as tsunamis changed the Earth’s gravity field enough to perturb the GRACE satellites’ orbits at ~ 500 km above the surface. The on-board microwave ranging system detected inter-satellite acceleration anomalies of up to 1.0–4.0 nm/s2. There is good agreement between GRACE measurements and tsunami models for the three events. Complementarily to buoys, ocean bottom pressure sounders, and satellite altimeters, GRACE is sensitive to the long-wavelength spatial scale of tsunamis and provides an independent source of information for assessing alternate early earthquake and tsunami models. Our study demonstrates an innovative way of applying GRACE and GRACE Follow-On data to detect transient geophysical mass changes which cannot be observed by the conventional monthly Level-2 and mascon solutions.

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KW - Transient signals

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GRACE gravitational measurements of tsunamis after the 2004, 2010, and 2011 great earthquakes

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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