GRACE Documentation

General Documentation

GRACE Science Data System Development Plan
GRACE 327-710

Revision: C
Authors: M. Watkins, T. Gruber, S. Bettadpur
Date: August 2, 2004

Defines the GRACE Science Data System (SDS) and describes the data flow and roles and responsibilities of each SDS component.

GRACE Product Specification Document
GRACE 327-720

Revision: 4.6
Author: S. Bettadpur
Date: May 29, 2012

Provides a detailed description of data products at all levels for the GRACE mission.

GRACE Monthly SDS Newsletter

Revision: N/A
Author: F. Flechtner

Monthly newsletter provided by the GRACE Science Data System describing science relevant events on the GRACE space crafts and statistics on L0, L1 and L2 product generation.

Level 1B Documentation

GRACE Level 1B Data Product User Handbook JPL D-22027
GRACE 327-733

Revision: 1.3
Authors: K. Case, G. Kruizinga, and S.C. Wu
Date: March 24, 2010

Provides a comprehensive description of the content and format of the Level 1B data.

AOD1B Product Description Document
GRACE 327-750

Revision: 6.1
Author: Henryk Dobslaw, Inga Bergmann-Wolf, Robert Dill, Lea Poropat, Frank Flechtner
Date: October 19, 2017

Describes the atmospheric and ocean de-aliasing product (AOD1B) and the barotropic ocean model output (OCN1B).

Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document for GRACE Level 1B Data Processing
GRACE 327-741

Revision: 1.2
Authors: S.C. Wu, G. Kruizinga, W. Bertiger
Date: May 9, 2006

Describes the algorithms producing the main quantities on the Level 1B data.

Level 2 Documentation

GFZ Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE 327-743 Revision: 0.0 Author: C. Dahle, et al. Date: August 3, 2018	Describes the processing standards, models, and parameters adopted for the Level-2 Product Release 06 generated at GFZ.
CSR Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE 327-742 Revision: 5.0 Author: S. Bettadpur Date: May 01, 2018	Describes the processing standards, models, and parameters adopted for the Level-2 Product Release 06 generated at CSR.
JPL Level-2 Processing Standards Document for Product Release 06 GRACE 327-744 Revision: 6.0 Authors: Dah-Ning Yuan Date: June 1, 2018	Describes the processing standards, models, and parameters adopted for the Level-2 Product Release 06 generated at JPL.
GRACE Gravity Field Solution Data Format GRACE 327-732 Revision: 1.1 Author: F. Flechtner Date: November 27, 2003	Describes the Level-2 GRACE gravity data formats.
Level-2 Gravity Field Product User Handbook GRACE 327-734 Revision: 4.0 Author: S. Bettadpur Date: April 25, 2018	Provides a description of the Earth gravity field estimates provided by the Level 2 processing.

Ancillary Documentation

An Analysis of Gravity-Field Estimation Based on Inter-satellite
Dual One-Way Biased Ranging
JPL Publication 98-15

Author: J.B. Thomas
Date: May 1999

Describes a dual one-way approach for extracting "high-rate" k-band intersateliite biased range measurements.

Optimal combination of quaternions from multiple star cameras
JPL Internal Memorandum

Author: L.J. Romans
Date: May 2003

Describes a procedure for optimally combining quaternions measured simultaneously from different aligned star cameras.

Relative Time and Frequency Alignment between Two Low Earth Orbiters
GRACE, Proceedings of IEEE, FCS, Tampa, FL

Authors: W. Bertiger, C. Dunn, I. Harris, G. Kruizinga, L. Romans, M. Watkins, and S.C. Wu
Date: May 2003

Describes the validation of the relative clock accuracy.

L1 and L2 Release Notes

Release Notes for GRACE L1B products Author: G. Kruizinga	Gives additional information on GRACE L1B products (not contained in other L1 documents).
Release Notes for CSR RL06 GRACE L2 products Author: S. Bettadpur	Gives additional information on CSR RL06 GRACE L2 products (not contained in CSR RL05 processing standards document).
Release Notes for GFZ RL06 GRACE L2 products Author: C. Dahle	Gives additional information on GFZ RL06 GRACE L2 products (not contained in GFZ RL05 processing standards document).
Release Notes for JPL RL06 GRACE L2 products Author: Christopher M. McCullough, David N. Wiese, & Dah-Ning Yuan	Gives additional information on JPL RL06 GRACE L2 products (not contained in JPL RL05 processing standards document).

Technical Notes

GRACE Technical Note #01: Sequence of Events (SOE) File Updated Daily	Provides a record of changes of the state of a specific satellite sensor or satellite event, which may alter the processing parameters used for the L1B processing. This file is updated on a daily basis.
GRACE Technical Note #02: ACC blases Author: S. Bettadpur Date: June 17, 2009	Provides recommendations for a-priori bias & scale parameters for Level 1B ACC data.
GRACE Technical Note #03: Sequence of Events (SOE) format description Author: G. Kruizinga Date: October 20, 2004	Provides a detailed description and format information on how the SOE file is organized.
GRACE Technical Note #04: Usage guidelines for GFZ RL03 and JPL RL02 GRACE gravity fields & atmosphere/ocean background models Authors: S. Bettadpur, F. Flechtner, R. Schmidt Date: May 9, 2006	Provides detailed guidelines for usage on GFZ RL03 and JPL RL02 GRACE models.
GRACE Technical Note #05: Monthly estimates of C20 from 5 SLR satellites Authors: M. Cheng and J. Ries	Provides C20 estimates obtained from SLR analysis which may be used when analyzing CSR RL04 L2 products.
GRACE Technical Note #06: Impact of change in AOD1B on RL04 monthly GSM Author: S. Bettadpur Date: Feburary 21, 2008	Discusses the impact on GRACE level 2 products of the reprocessing of June 2006 through September 2007 GRACE AOD1B data. It is recommended that the following products be replaced with the re-processed ones: AOD1B, GSM-2, GAC-2, and GAD-2.
GRACE Technical Note #07: Monthly estimates of C20 from 5 satellites based on GRACE RL05 models Authors: M. Cheng and J.Ries Date: Routinely updated	Provides RL05-compatible values of SLR-drived C20 harmonics to replace those found in CSR/JPL-RL05 GSM files.
GRACE Technical Note #08: Corrections for discontinuities in atmospheric pressure data for February 2006 to January 2010	Corrections to adjust for the discontinuities found in atmospheric pressure for products GAA and GAC due to periodic updates in the ECMWF model for the time period February 2006 to January 2010. See the AOD1B documentation for more details.
GRACE Technical Note #09: Corrections for discontinuities in atmospheric pressure data for February 2010 to May 2015	Corrections to adjust for the discontinuities found in atmospheric pressure for products GAA and GAC due to periodic updates in the ECMWF model for the time period February 2010 to May 2015. See the AOD1B documentation for more details.
GRACE Technical Note #10: Corrections for discontinuities in atmospheric pressure data for May 2015 and after	Corrections to adjust for the discontinuities found in atmospheric pressure for products GAA and GAC due to periodic updates in the ECMWF model for the time period May 2015 and after. See the AOD1B documentation for more details.
GRACE Technical Note #11: Monthly estimates of C20 from 5 satellites based on GRACE RL06 models	Use these estimates to replace the C20 values from the GSM files of the GRACE RL06 products only. These estimates are not intended to be used with the GRACE RL05 or earlier products.
GRACE Technical Note #12: Convert Global Mean OBP -> Global Mean Ocean Mass	This calculation uses AOD1B 'GAC' fields, and integrates over the ocean-area only; due to the definition of 'GAC' (see AOD1B handbook for further details), the resulting mean value effectively represents 'mean tmospheric mass over the global ocean' for each time step.

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