Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/GRACEFO_L2_JPL_MONTHLY_0063
GRACEFO_L2_JPL_MONTHLY_0063·v6.3·dataset

Earth's shifting gravity, monthly (GRACE-FO, JPL)

GRACE-FO Level-2 Monthly Geopotential Spherical Harmonics JPL Release 6.3 (RL06.3)
deformation NASA POCLOUD Level 2 active ASCII
In plain English

What it measures. Month-by-month estimates of Earth's gravity field, which reveal how mass such as water and ice is shifting around the planet over time.

How it's made. Derived by NASA's JPL from the GRACE-FO twin satellites, which sense tiny changes in the distance between them; the data are given as mathematical coefficients (spherical harmonics).

How & where you'd use it. Labeled for expert use only, it's a specialist input that scientists turn into maps of changing groundwater, ice sheets, and sea level rather than reading directly.

What's measured

SOLID EARTH › GRAVITY/GRAVITATIONAL FIELD › GRAVITY

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2018-05-22 → ongoing
  • Measured byGRACE-FO (GRACE-FO MWI, GRACE-FO LRI, ACC, GRACE-FO SCA)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -89, 180, 89
  • FormatsASCII
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Measure ground motion and subsidence (InSAR)
  • Track earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides
  • Map elevation and terrain change
Official description

FOR EXPERT USE ONLY. This dataset contains estimates of the total month-by-month geopotential of the Earth, derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission measurements, produced by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The data are provided as spherical harmonic coefficients, averaged over approximately a month, and available from 2018 onward. These coefficients are derived from the Microwave Instrument (MWI) measured intersatellite range changes between the twin spacecraft of the GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) mission. The GRACE-FO mission, a joint partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), launched on 22 May 2018. It uses twin satellites to accurately map variations in the Earth's gravity field and surface mass distribution. It is designed as a successor to the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission. This GRACE-FO RL06.3 data is an updated version of the GRACE-FO RL06.1 Level-2 data products. RL06.3 differs from RL06.1 only in the Level-1B accelerometer transplant data that is used for the GF2 satellite: Level-2 RL06.3 uses ACH1B RL04 that is contained within the ACX2 Level-1 bundle, which replaces ACH1B RL04 contained within the ACX Level-1 bundle that was used for Level-2 RL06.1 (note: ACX2-L1B is only applicable for 01/2023 onwards in wide-pointing operational mode; from 6/2018 through 12/2022, RL06.1 and RL06.3 GRACE-FO data are identical and based on ACX; ACX2 is not available for 03/2023-06/2023 as the satellites were not in wide-pointing mode during that period). All GRACE-FO RL06.3 Level-2 products are fully compatible with the GRACE RL06 level-2 fields. Refer to the mission page for more information.

Get the data

gracefo_l2_jpl_monthly_0063_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GRACEFO_L2_JPL_MONTHLY_0063",
    version="6.3",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from POCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.