TASMAGOG

TASMAGOG (Temporal And Spatial Multiscale Assessment of mass transport by combination of Gravity Observations from GRACE and terrestrial stations) is a project within the German DFG priority program SPP 1257 "Mass Transport and Mass Distribution in the Earth System"

Project Partners are:  

• Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ), Department 1: Geodäsie und Fernerkundung


• Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, Institute of Geosciences


• Friedrich-Schiller University Jena

The network of superconducting gravimeters (SG) of the "Global Geodynamics Project" (GGP) in combination with repeated absolute gravity measurements and data from permanent GPS stations offers the unique opportunity to supplement the gravity field variations derived from the GRACE satellite mission. As the gravity data either from terrestrial observations together with GPS or satellites contain valuable information on mass transfers esp. hydrological mass phenomena, it can be used for the assessment and evaluation of hydrological models which in turn can help to separate hydrological influences from the gravity signals. Because of the different spatial and temporal resolution of the gravity data a combination of the data sets can be considered as the most straight forward approach to retrieve a maximum of information. For a consistent combination of the data sets this gap between terrestrial data and gravity measurements from satellites has to be bridged. One major task will be the separation of local and regional influences in the terrestrial data. The outcome of the project will help in the utilisation of gravity satellite data for the evaluation and enhancement of regional to large scale models of mass transfers. In a first step the study will first focus on Europe where it benefits from the dense and long-term observation networks, which covers the period of the GRACE mission. Later the investigations will be extended to stations worldwide.