Satellite gravity data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provides a quantitative measure of terrestrial water storage (TWS) change at different temporal and spatial scales. In this study, we investigate the ability of GRACE to quantitatively monitor long-term hydrological characteristics over the Lake Volta region. Principal component analysis (PCA) is employed to study temporal and spatial variability of long-term TWS changes. Long-term Lake Volta water storage change appears to be the dominant long-term TWS change signal in the Volta basin. GRACE-derived TWS changes and precipitation variations compiled by the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) are related both temporally and spatially, but spatial leakage attenuates the magnitude of GRACE estimates, especially at small regional scales. Using constrained forward modeling, we successfully remove leakage error in GRACE estimates. After this leakage correction, GRACE-derived Lake Volta water storage changes agree remarkably well with independent estimates from satellite altimetry at interannual and longer time scales. This demonstrates the value of GRACE estimates to monitor and quantify water storage changes in lakes, especially in relatively small regions with complicated topography.

We analyze the impact of large earthquakes on the estimation of the global mean ocean mass (GMOM) change rate over the 13-year period (January 2003 to December 2015) using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Release-06 (RL06) monthly gravity solutions released by the Center for Space Research (CSR). We take into account the effects of the December 2004 Mw9.1 and April 2012 Mw8.6 Sumatra earthquakes, the March 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, and the February 2010 Mw8.8 Chile earthquake. After removing the co- and post-seismic effects of these earthquakes in the oceanic areas by least squares fitting, we estimate the GMOM rate from GRACE monthly observations. Results show that GRACE-observed GMOM rate before the seismic correction is 2.12 ± 0.30 mm/year, while after correction the rate is 2.05 ± 0.30 mm/year. Even though the −0.07 ± 0.02 mm/year seismic influence on GRACE GMOM rate is small on a global scale, it is a systematic bias and should be considered for improved quantification and understanding of the global sea level change.