Monday, August 20, 2018

The PO.DAAC is pleased to announce the public release of the GRACE Level-2 Release 06 (RL06) datasets from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).  These datasets complete the release of GRACE Level-2 RL06 products (see Release announcement on July, 16, 2018).  The RL06 version of GRACE Level-2 has made several significant improvements and updates from the current RL05, including updated background force models and improved parameterizations. For more details, please read the following online documents: “GFZ Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE” and “GFZ Level-2 GRACE Products - Release Notes Version 6.0”. This release includes five Level-2 products from GFZ: GAA, GAB, GAC, GAD, and GSR, which are all in compressed ASCII format and can be accessed through both FTP and Drive. The GRACE RL06 datasets have been redesigned with a new header structure, which complies with the PO.DAAC standard metadata model and is formatted in human-readable YAML format.  This header and the new Level-2 file naming convention will also be used for GRACE-FO data.

In addition, the GRACE Level-1B RL03 dataset is also being released.  This dataset consists only of reprocessed Star Camera and K-Band Range Level-1B products and was used, along with the other Level-1B RL02 data, to produce GRACE Level-2 RL06.

The dataset information pages for these datasets can be found at:

  1. GFZ GAA: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/GRACE_GAA_L2_GRAV_GFZ_RL06
  2. GFZ GAB: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/GRACE_GAB_L2_GRAV_GFZ_RL06
  3. GFZ GAC: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/GRACE_GAC_L2_GRAV_GFZ_RL06
  4. GFZ GAD: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/GRACE_GAD_L2_GRAV_GFZ_RL06
  5. GZF GSM: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/GRACE_GSM_L2_GRAV_GFZ_RL06
  6. GRACE Level-1B: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/GRACE_L1B_GRAV_JPL_RL03

The datasets can be accessed with FTP at:

  1. GFZ L2 RL06: ftp//podaac-ftp.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/grace/L2/GFZ/RL06
  2. GRACE L1B RL03: ftp//podaac-ftp.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/grace/L1B/JPL/RL03 

The dataset can be accessed with Drive: 

  1. GFZ L2 RL06: podaac-tools.jpl.nasa.gov/drive/files/allData/grace/L2/GFZ/RL06
  2. GFZ L1B RL03: podaac-tools.jpl.nasa.gov/drive/files/allData/grace/L1B/JPL/RL03

All data users who have any questions or concerns are encouraged to contact us at our Forum: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/forum/.