An analysis of terrestrial water storage variations in Illinois with implications for the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

Variations in terrestrial water storage affect weather, climate, geophysica l phenomena, and life on land, yet observation and understanding of terrest rial water storage are deficient. However, estimates of terrestrial water s torage changes soon may be derived from observations of Earth's time-depend ent gravity field made by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (G RACE). Previous studies have evaluated that concept using modeled soil mois ture and snow data. This investigation builds upon their results by relying on observations rather than modeled results, by analyzing groundwater and surface water variations as well as snow and soil water variations, and by using a longer time series. Expected uncertainty in GRACE-derived water sto rage changes are compared to monthly, seasonal, and annual terrestrial wate r storage changes estimated from observations in Illinois (145,800 km(2)). Assuming those changes are representative of larger regions, detectability is possible given a 200,000 km(2) or larger area. Changes in soil moisture are typically the largest component of terrestrial water storage variations , followed by changes in groundwater plus intermediate zone storage.