Terrestrial water storage changes over the Pearl River Basin from GRACE and connections with Pacific climate variability

Time-variable gravity data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment （GRACE） satellite mission are used to study terrestrial water storage （TWS） changes over the Pearl River Basin （PRB） for the period 2003-Nov. 2014. TWS estimates from GRACE generally show good agreement with those from two hydrological models GLDAS and WGHM. But they show different capability of detecting significant TWS changes over the PRB. Among them, WGHM is likely to underestimate the seasonal variability of TWS, while GRACE detects long- term water depletions over the upper PRB as was done by hydrological models, and observes significant water increases around the Longtan Reservoir （LTR） due to water impoundment. The heavy drought in 2011 caused by the persistent precipitation deficit has resulted in extreme low surface runoff and water level of the LTR. Moreover, large variability of summer and autumn precipitation may easily trigger floods and droughts in the rainy season in the PRB, especially for summer, as a high correlation of 0.89 was found between precipitation and surface runoff. Generally, the PRB TWS was negatively correlated with El Nifio-Southern Oscillation （ENSO） events. However, the modulation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation （PDO） may impact this relationship, and the significant TWS anomaly was likely to occur in the peak of PDO phase as they agree well in both of the magnitude and timing of peaks. This indicates that GRACE-based TWS could be a valuable parameter for studying climatic in- fluences in the PRB.

GRACE-based estimates of water discharge over the Yellow River basin

As critical component of hydrologic cycle, basin discharge is a key issue for understanding the hydrological and climatologic related to water and energy cycles. Combining GRACE gravity field models with ET from GLDAS models and precipitation from GPCP, discharge of the Yellow River basin are estimated from the water balance equation. While comparing the results with discharge from GLDAS model and in situ measurements, the results reveal that discharge from Mosaic and CLM GLDAS model can partially represent the river discharge and the discharge estimation from water balance equation could reflect the discharge from precipitation over the Yellow River basin.

An improved gravity method to horizontal tectonic stresses and its applications in Tibet

It is significant for identifying mass movement patterns to invert horizontal tectonic stresses at different depths underneath Tibet.In recent years,a large number of achievements focusing on two-dimensional tectonic stresses have been obtained from gravity data.However,three-dimensional tectonic stresses in Tibet are still unknown or debatable.Therefore,in the present study an improved method to multilayer horizontal tectonic stresses using gravity observations is developed.The inverted multilayer horizontal tectonic stresses are in agreement with those from previous studies.In addition,rich tectonic structure and development can be revealed from the inverted multilayer horizontal tectonic stresses:(1)the distribution of horizontal tectonic stresses at various depths shows strong correlation with that of the tectonic elements,where major faults and earthquake epicenters are corresponding with stress highs and the stable basins are consistent with stress lows.(2)the mass movement patterns of whole Tibet present clockwise,and the material movement directions in the west and east are approximately southnorth and east-west,respectively.(3)in eastern Tibet,the eastward materials caused by the south-north extrusion between Indian and Eurasian plates are divided into two parts by the stable Sichuan Block,one flowing nearly southeast and the other moving almost northeast.The inverted multilayer horizontal tectonic stresses may provide direct evidences for mass movement patterns in Tibet.

Detecting Droughts in Southwest China from GPS Vertical Position Displacements

The solid Earth responds elastically to terrestrial water storage(TWS)changes.Here global positioning system(GPS)vertical position data at 31 stations from the crustal movement observation network of China(CMONOC)from August 2010 to December 2016 are used to detect droughts in Southwest China.Monthly GPS vertical position displacements respond negatively to precipitation changes and TWS changes observed by gravity recovery and climate experiments(GRACE)as well as river water level variations.GPS vertical position anomalies(the non-seasonal term)are well correlated negatively(correlations of about-0.70)with the commonly used meteorological composite index(CI)in China and the GRACE drought severity index(GRACE-DSI),but less correlated with the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index(SPEI).Compared to CI,GPS vertical position anomalies have the advantage of detecting droughts caused by abrupt precipitation deficits in a short time.GRACE-DSI is less accurate in drought monitoring for some periods due to the missing data,while the severity of abrupt precipitation absent in some cases can be overestimated from SPEI with big variability.This study shows the reliability and advantages of GPS data in drought monitoring.