DOI: 10.5880/gfz.gravis_06_l2b
title: Post-processed GRACE/GRACE-FO Geopotential GSM Coefficients GFZ RL06 (Level-2B Product)

description: Version History: 09 June 2020:Release of Version 0002. This is an update of Version 0001 of the same data set. All changes and updates are documented in the changelog available via the data download section. Previously released versions of this data set are available at ftp://isdcftp.gfz-potsdam.de/grace/GravIS/GFZ/Level-2B/old_versions --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post-processed GRACE/GRACE-FO spherical harmonic coefficients of GFZ RL06 Level-2 GSM products representing an estimate of Earth's gravity field variations during the specified timespan. Post-processing steps comprise: (1) subtraction of a long-term mean field; (2) optionally, decorrelation and smoothing with VDK filter (anisotropic filter taking the actual error covariance information of the underlying GSM coefficients into account, see Horvath et al. (2018)); (3) replacement of coefficients C20, C30 (only for the months starting from 2016/11 and later), C21 and S21 and its formal standard deviations by values estimated from a combination of GRACE/GRACE-FO and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR); (4) subtraction of linear trend caused by Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) as provided by a numerical model; (5) insertion of geocenter coefficients (C10, C11, S11); and (6) removal of estimated aliased signal of the S2 tide (161 days period). These coefficients represent signals caused by water mass redistribution over the continents and in the oceans. These post-processed GRACE/GRACE-FO GSM products are denoted as Level-2B products. There are multiple variants of Level-2B products available that differ by the characteristics of the anisotropic filter applied. These variants are distinguishable by the following strings in the product file names: - 'NFIL': Level-2B product is not filtered- 'VDK1': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK1- 'VDK2': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK2- 'VDK3': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK3- 'VDK4': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK4- 'VDK5': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK5- 'VDK6': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK6- 'VDK7': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK7- 'VDK8': Level-2B product is filtered with VDK8 The individual auxiliary data sets and models used during the post-processing steps mentioned above are provided as well (in the aux_data folder): - 'GRAVIS-2B_2002095-2020091_GFZOP_0600_NFIL_0002.gz': Long-term mean field calculated as unweighted average of the 183 available GFZ RL06 GSM products in the period from 2002/04 up to and including 2020/03.- 'GRAVIS-2B_GFZOP_GRACE+SLR_LOW_DEGREES_0002.dat': time series of coefficients C20, C30, C21 and S21 estimated from a combination of GRACE/GRACE-FO and SLR- 'GRAVIS-2B_GIA_ICE-6G_D_VM5a_0002.gz': Model from Peltier et al. (2018) for subtraction of linear trend caused by GIA- 'GRAVIS-2B_GFZOP_GEOCENTER_0002.dat': Time series with geocenter coefficients estimated from GFZ RL06 Further information about the Level-2B products and the auxiliary data is provided in the header of the corresponding data files.