Bridging the Terrestrial Water Storage Anomalies between the GRACE/GRACE-FO Gap Using BEAST + GMDH Algorithm

Abstract

Regarding the terrestrial water storage anomaly (TWSA) gap between the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-on (-FO) gravity satellite missions, a BEAST (Bayesian estimator of abrupt change, seasonal change and trend)+GMDH (group method of data handling) gap-filling scheme driven by hydrological and meteorological data is proposed. Considering these driving data usually cannot fully capture the trend changes of the TWSA time series, we propose first to use the BEAST algorithm to perform piecewise linear detrending for the TWSA series and then fill the gap of the detrended series using the GMDH algorithm. The complete gap-filling TWSAs can be readily obtained after adding back the previously removed piecewise trend. By comparing the simulated gap filled by BEAST + GMDH using Multiple Linear Regression and Singular Spectrum Analysis with reference values, the results show that the BEAST + GMDH scheme is superior to the latter two in terms of the correlation coefficient, Nash-efficiency coefficient, and root-mean-square error. The real GRACE/GFO gap filled by BEAST + GMDH is consistent with those from hydrological models, Swarm TWSAs, and other literature regarding spatial distribution patterns. The correlation coefficients there between are, respectively, above 0.90, 0.80, and 0.90 in most of the global river basins.