Amazing GRACE
Amazing GRACE
A pair of satellites will soon begin mapping tiny
variations in Earth's gravity, allowing scientists to track the
motions of mass around and beneath the globe for the first time.
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October 30, 2001: If only Sir Isaac
Newton were alive today! The mastermind of humanity's first scientific
theory of gravity would surely be amazed by NASA's upcoming Gravity
Recovery And Climate Experiment.
Better known as "GRACE,"
the mission will use a pair of satellites to map tiny variations
in our planet's gravitational field.
Back in Newton's day, most scientists figured Earth's gravity was constant everywhere. After all, world travelers weighed about the same no matter where they went. And apples seemed to fall at the same rate all over our planet.
Now we know better. Our planet is lumpy and so is its gravitational field. The variations are very slight, much less than 1 percent. Nevertheless, they are important. Tiny changes in gravity, from place to place and over time, can reveal a great deal about Earth's oceans and our planet's hidden interior.
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"Every month during GRACE's 5-year expected lifetime we will get a map of Earth's gravitational field," says Michael Watkins, project scientist for GRACE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "We'll be able to see various phenomena that involve transporting mass around -- and how much mass they're actually moving. These are things that aren't easy to see with any other type of measurement."
How can GRACE measure these subtle variations in gravity from
space? After all, the satellites will be in free-fall around
the Earth (like all objects in orbit), so they can't measure
gravity like gravimeters on the ground do: by measuring how hard
the ground pushes back against the weight of the gravimeter.
To sense gravity in free-fall, GRACE will deploy a pair of identical
satellites in the same orbit -- one satellite 220 km (137 miles)
ahead of the other. As the pair circle Earth, regions of slightly
stronger gravity will affect the lead satellite first, pulling
it slightly away from the trailing satellite. By monitoring the
distance between the two with extraordinary precision (the satellites
can sense a change of separation of one micron -- about 1/50th
the width of a human hair), GRACE will be able to detect minute
fluctuations in the gravitational field.
Left:
The
twin GRACE satellites will use hyper-sensitive microwave range
finders to measure the distance between them. Image courtesy
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory .
GRACE's gravity maps will have a spatial resolution of about 300 km on the ground. Scientists expect the maps to reveal plenty of complex features caused by, e.g., mountains, ice sheets, and subducted oceanic plates. Earth's large-scale structure (flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator) will appear in the maps as well.
Maps of Earth's gravitational field already exist, but GRACE will improve their precision 100-fold and allow scientists to monitor changes.
Ocean studies will benefit greatly from the data. For example,
GRACE maps will reveal new information about the shape of our
planet's oceans. Free from other influences, the ocean surface
will tend to take the shape of the "geoid," which is
the imaginary surface on which the pull of gravity is everywhere
equal. But sea-surface height -- routinely measured by the TOPEX/Poseidon
satellite -- also varies because of large-scale ocean currents
and changes in water temperature. Together, GRACE and TOPEX/Poseidon
can sort out these effects.
Says Watkins: "What an oceanographer would like to know
is, how much of the shape of the ocean surface is because the
ocean is following the geoid -- and how much of it is interesting
to oceanographers, like currents. You have to subtract off the
geoid in order to get that oceanographic part."
Below: GRACE project scientist Michael Watkins conducts a low-tech gravity experiment at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
With a better idea
of the contribution of gravity, scientists will be able to draw
better conclusions about the temperatures and currents of the
oceans -- vital information for understanding the global climate.
An especially exciting aspect of the GRACE mission, Watkins
says, is the ability to watch changes in the gravitational field
over time. Gravity is the "shadow" of mass, and mass
is a crucial part of the equation for many physical phenomena.
Whether it be the thinning of vast ice sheets, the flow of water
through aquifers, or the slow currents of magma deep inside the
Earth, having direct measurements of the amount of mass involved
will enable scientists to reach better conclusions about these
important natural processes.
"You can determine, for example, if the sea level is rising
because there's actually more water melting into it or if the
water is expanding simply due to heating," Watkins says.
"If you just measure the height of the ocean surface with
an altimeter, it's hard to separate a change in volume from an
increase in mass. GRACE will provide the extra information on
mass that you need to understand what's really happening."
All mass is created equal in the eyes of gravity, of course,
so scientists will need to don their London Fog®
trench coats and do a bit of detective work to figure out "who
done it?" Was a measured shift in gravity caused by the
moving air masses of weather? Was it the swelling of the water
level in an underground aquifer? Or was it maybe the movement
of molten rock far beneath the surface of the Earth?
Fortunately, there are clues scientists can use to find the culprit.
First
of all, they will "subtract off" the effects of the
motions of the atmosphere. Meteorologists have become quite good
at estimating the distribution of mass in the atmosphere using
the reams of data produced by weather stations around the world
and weather satellites circling above it. These estimates will
show what part of the GRACE measurements is due to the atmosphere,
allowing scientists to "peel back" the atmosphere and
look at the surface and sub-surface.
Above: With global climate
change a growing concern, scientists are keeping a watchful eye
on the world's ice sheets and glaciers. Image courtesy NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center .
They will then use a variety of tricks to sort out exactly what
kind of mass it is -- be it water, ice, or magma -- that GRACE
is watching move. These different processes have characteristic
time scales. Surface waters such as lakes and rivers would be
expected to produce faster changes than ocean currents, and ocean
currents should produce faster changes than deep magma flows.
"The effects of convection currents in the Earth's mantle could be evidenced anywhere. An event could involve a mass flow hundreds of kilometers under the Earth, and it could be under Ohio or under the ocean or anywhere. But you don't expect that to change month to month," Watkins says. "And you can know with a fair certainty that the mass movement is a hydrologic event if you have a correlation with precipitation, for example."
In other words, scientists will use other sources of information -- such as rainfall data, geographic knowledge, and data from other satellites -- to pinpoint what event is causing the small shift in the gravitational field.
This kind of inference is a new science, Watkins points out, and methods for drawing conclusions based on GRACE data will take some time to refine.
Above: Earth is a geologically
active planet -- its mass is always slowly shifting around. These
motions have a different characteristic time scales than other
mass movements, such as water flows. Scientists will use GRACE
to study geologic, hydrologic, and glaciologic phenomena.
Once the amount of mass involved in, say, the thinning of an
ice sheet has been determined, scientists will then combine that
knowledge with other data in a sort of synergy that will allow
for conclusions not otherwise possible.
"You can learn more by saying here's the volumetric change
in the ice and here's the mass change in the ice," Watkins
says. "It turns out that the combination of the laser altimeter
[on TOPEX/Poseidon] and GRACE can illuminate that question much
better than either one alone."
Right: This image shows changes in the Greenland ice sheet between 1994 and 1999, as measured by an airborne laser altimeter. The darker blue areas denote greater reduction in the height of the ice sheet, while light gray marks areas where the height of the sheet increased slightly. Mass data from GRACE will help researchers understand what such changes in height really mean.
Other satellites
also produce data that will complement GRACE's. ICESat, for example,
will precisely measure the surface of the world's ice sheets
and glaciers. And NASA's upcoming Aqua mission will detect soil
moisture.
"GRACE is really the only instrumentation in space that
can tell you much about water storage. That data is an interesting
element that we can combine with these soil-moisture measuring
missions to get a much better handle on the hydrologic cycle."
GRACE's mass measurements will also be combined with the numerous
types of environmental data collected the old fashioned way:
by scientists on the ground.
"The combination of the data sets is what really makes the
difference. That's a general trend in our science anyway -- to
try to combine different data sets into computer models,"
Watkins says.
By sensing gravity and mass fluctuations worldwide, GRACE will
add an important new data set to scientists' toolkit for studying
the climate and geology of the Earth. By offering this new perspective,
GRACE marks an impressive milestone as humanity continues the
study of Earth's gravity that began with Newton over three centuries
ago.
GRACE mission -- homepage containing lots of information about the GRACE mission and the amazing scientific instruments that will make such precise measurements possible.
Interview with Watkins -- "Getting the Lowdown on Gravity" -- from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory website.
Ocean science at JPL -- information on how satellite data is being used to better understand Earth's oceans. Includes an image of sea-surface height generated using TOPEX/Poseidon data.
NASA Oceanography -- an overview of the many ways NASA participates in and contributes to ocean science.
TOPEX/Poseidon -- homepage for the NASA/CNES ocean surface mapping mission, from JPL
Aqua satellite -- homepage, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
ICESat -- homepage, from GSFC
Earth's Fidgeting Climate --Science@NASA article discussing
the observed thinning of the Greenland ice sheet and the difficulty
in determining humanity's role in causing such changes.
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