Fri Apr 10, F. Flechtner
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Yu, Nan, Wang, Jinghuan, and Li, Jiancheng, 2026. Revisiting climate–driven low–degree spherical harmonic variations through the improved reconstruction of hydrospheric and cryospheric mass redistributions. Geophysical Journal International, 245(1):ggag055, doi:10.1093/gji/ggag055.
• from the NASA Astrophysics Data System • by the DOI System •
@ARTICLE{2026GeoJI.245..055Y,
author = {{Yu}, Nan and {Wang}, Jinghuan and {Li}, Jiancheng},
title = "{Revisiting climate-driven low-degree spherical harmonic variations through the improved reconstruction of hydrospheric and cryospheric mass redistributions}",
journal = {Geophysical Journal International},
keywords = {Global change from geodesy, Satellite gravity, Time-series analysis, Glaciology, Hydrology},
year = 2026,
month = apr,
volume = {245},
number = {1},
eid = {ggag055},
pages = {ggag055},
abstract = "{The degree-2 spherical harmonic coefficients of Earth's time-variable
gravity field are highly sensitive to large-scale mass
redistribution within the hydrosphere and cryosphere. Under
contemporary global warming, climate-driven mass changes in
these reservoirs are a dominant source, yet their individual
contributions remain incompletely quantified. Traditional
estimates based on hydrospheric models, filtered GRACE spherical
harmonic solutions or GRACE Mascon products are limited by
incomplete cryospheric representation, spatial leakage and
regularization biases. Here, we apply the Fingerprint Approach
that solves the sea-level equation on an elastic Earth to
generate geoid fingerprints for four barystatic processes:
terrestrial water storage, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the
Antarctic Ice Sheet and mountain glaciers. Using these
fingerprints and unfiltered GRACE/GRACE-FO Stokes coefficients
for 2003─2024, we reconstruct the individual degree-2
coefficients C$_{20}$, C$_{21}$ and S$_{21}$, along with the
associated time-series of Earth's dynamic oblateness (J$_{2}$)
and the mass terms of polar motion excitation (, ). We evaluate
the reconstructed contributions against residual geodetic
observations from satellite laser ranging and Earth orientation
parameters, after removing atmospheric, oceanic and glacial
isostatic adjustment effects. The combined hydrospheric and
cryospheric reconstructions reproduce both the secular trends
and annual cycles of the residual observed J$_{2}$, and
series. Terrestrial water storage dominates the seasonal
variability of J$_{2}$, and , whereas accelerated ice-mass loss
from Greenland and Antarctica controls the secular trend, with
mountain-glacier mass loss also contributing to the long-term
trend in J$_{2}$. The resulting polar motion excitation drift
closely matches the residual geodetic estimate in both magnitude
and direction, indicating that contemporary climate-driven mass
redistribution can largely account for recent changes in
residual geodetic observations, and demonstrating the value of
fingerprint-based reconstructions for monitoring climate impacts
on the Earth system.}",
doi = {10.1093/gji/ggag055},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026GeoJI.245..055Y},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
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Fri Apr 10, F. Flechtner